Where a $56 million dome couldn't fetch 600 grand; Pontiac ponders whether the sale could kick off a rebound
Once this city had its own car, 23,000 busy factory workers and the $55.7 million Silverdome, a storied Teflon-coated stadium where the Detroit Lions played, Elvis Presley sang, WrestleMania's Hulk Hogan stalked and Pope John Paul II prayed.</br></br>Today, Pontiac is in such bad shape -- a $7 million deficit, roughly $100 million in debt -- that the state has declared a financial emergency and sent in a turnaround expert to oversee finances. The car is gone -- General Motors is killing off its Pontiac brand. Most of the factories are deserted -- GM has only 3,882 employees here now. And the turnaround expert, Fred Leeb, has sold the Silverdome to a Canadian developer, who paid just $583,000 for the 80,300-seat stadium and 127 acres of land -- less than many Washingtonians pay for a house.</br></br>In their efforts to live on ever-shrinking revenue, governments across the country are trying to get unprofitable public property off their books. Arizona, facing a $1.5 billion budget shortfall, has started auctioning off a passel of buildings, including the governor's and legislators' offices, in a sale-leaseback plan in hopes of getting enough money to totter along another month. California, confronting a $20 billion deficit, talked about selling the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and San Quentin State Prison. Instead, the state put the Orange County Fairgrounds up for auction and decided to sell and lease back 11 state office buildings.</br></br>Here in Pontiac, the process has unsettled many residents. How could the Silverdome go so cheaply? What was Leeb thinking?</br></br>Leeb, 57, arrived last year and quickly took aim at unprofitable projects. Over the years, the city has invested about $80 million building and maintaining the Silverdome, a theater, an outdoor entertainment pavilion and other projects that have become a major burden in a time of recession and a diminished GM, the largest taxpayer.