This first was on our site Dec. 4, 2016, and is reposted as the Red Wings play their last game at The Joe. The author is a former reporter for The Detroit News and an occasional contributor to Deadline Detroit.
By Lou Mleczko
Amid all the media hoopla concerning the new $732.6 million Little Caesars Arena, there has been no published, independent inspection reports revealing whether this partially financed public project will be a safe facility in compliance with all building and fire codes.
Why should anyone worry about whether the city of Detroit will enforce all safety codes? Just take a last, clear-eyed look at Joe Louis Arena (JLA).
When it first opened to the public in December 1979, I reported for The Detroit News that the $28 million JLA was called “An Invitation to Disaster” by the foremost stadium safety expert in North America.
J.L. Pauls, an architect and research officer for the National Research Council of Canada, was brought to Detroit by The News to personally inspect the 20,000 seat arena just weeks before the it opened to the public with a collegiate basketball game between the University of Detroit and the University of Michigan.
Pauls, who sits on the safety committees for the major national building and fire codes and is currently a consulting safety expert based in suburban Washington, D.C., was appalled at what he found.
J. L. Pauls (l) and former Inspector Fred Morris (George Waldman photo)
He described the banks of 36 concrete exterior stairs, which are the only public entrance ways at either end of the arena, as “an invitation to disaster” that were the worst he had ever seen for a large indoor or outdoor stadium.
Pauls said the JLA exterior stair exits were worse than an outdoor soccer stadium in Scotland---Ibrox Park---where 66 people were trampled to death in 1971 as they were exiting the stadium on concrete stairs similar to JLA.
The exterior stairs were not the only major safety problem. Among other things Pauls found:
- There are no emergency exits on either length side of the aluminum-sided structure. The fire and building codes Detroit had adopted in the 1970’s required that no indoor arena seat be more than 200 feet from an outdoor exit. Pauls, along with former Detroit Building Inspector Fred Morris, measured thousands of seats that were from 300 to 400 feet to the nearest exit.
- Interior stairs in the vast seating area are unevenly constructed and hazardous. In the 10 years after JLA first opened, 189 patrons had sued the city of Detroit, the Red Wings and Smith, Hinchman & Grylls (now called SmithGroup) after they suffered serious injuries falling down the uneven stairs, which lack handrails and adequate lighting. The lawsuits filed by unlucky patrons detailed injuries ranging from broken ankles, legs and hips to sprained and broken backs.
- There are no emergency electric back-up generators on site in the event of a power failure. The only lighting is provided by emergency battery packs in hallways and stairwells.
- JLA relies on chillers in nearby Cobo Center for its air conditioning. In a Stanley Cup playoff hockey game in May 1988, fans and teams complained about 90-degree temperatures inside the sweltering arena. Fog formed on the soft ice late in the game, prompting Edmonton Oilers Coach Glen Sather to blast Wings owner Mike Ilitch for the intense heat. “I would have expected a building like this to be air-conditioned,” Sather said.
- There are only four narrow emergency stairwells for the 900 seats located in the 61 private boxes, which are near the roof far above the arena floor. In an emergency, these patrons must navigate a narrow hallway hundreds of feet to the single door stairwells, which are situated in the four corners of the building. Remember, elevators at ether building entrance cannot be used for emergency exiting.
In my reporting for The News, I discovered that the architectural design used for building JLA was not the first one submitted by SmithGroup architects/engineers. The venerable Detroit-based engineering firm originally had designed an arena that featured street-level exits that complied with applicable building and fire codes. There were panoramic picture windows where patrons could gaze out and see the Detroit River. I have a glossy photo print of this first design.
Mayor Coleman Young Steps In
The initial plan rejected by the Red Wings (Photo: Alan Lawrence)
What happened? Mayor Coleman A. Young, who was determined to keep the Red Wings from moving to a planned arena adjacent to the Pontiac Silverdome, offered the Red Wings a sweetheart deal to break away from their suburban contract and move into the JLA, where construction had commenced in 1977.
When the Red Wings were shown the architectural drawings for JLA, they objected to the interior layout completely. The hockey club, which was then owned by Bruce Norris and other family members, presented an alternative design that divided the 20,000 seats into a lower and an upper bowl separated by a single interior aisleway.
This aisleway, only five feet, five inches wide, is the only path for people to reach their seats. Compounding the violation, the Ilitch-owned Wings insisted on temporary seating placed on this aisleway as well as allowing others to stand, effectively blocking the path to the outer lobby area.
This layout required that the outer lobby be raised 36 feet to accommodate this seating arrangement, which created the need for the dangerous outdoor stairs we have. The Red Wings wanted to reduce the number of exterior exit doors that would require more ushers to monitor them. They also felt they could charge higher ticket prices for the lower bowl, upper bowl configuration.
The city agreed to the changes and SmithGroup, which was paid $2.1 million for its work, drew up the new layout.
The city and the Red Wings agreed to a 30-year contract where the Wings took over management and profits of nearby Cobo Arena as well as JLA. The Wings only had to pay $250,000 in taxes and $450,000 in fixed rent that didn’t contain an escalator clause tied to inflation.
The arena under construction (George Waldman photo)
Meanwhile, the city of Detroit had to raid other city funds to cover the total cost of $57.8 million for JLA and the nearby parking garage. Detroit couldn’t sell some $44.5 million in revenue bonds because of the city’s sinking bond rating, so Mayor Young took $8 million from the Public Lighting Department, $5.7 million from a state urban grant surplus and $6.8 million from a health insurance fund.
Young then pressured the City Council to obtain a $38 million federal loan for six years using money that was promised for the city’s Community Development Block Grant Fund.
In order to squeeze this huge arena onto what was previously a small 4-acre parking lot adjacent to Cobo Center, SmithGroup jammed rows of seats closely together. Only 12 lavatories were constructed initially. All 20,000 patrons had to use a 40-foot-wide outer concourse that eventually took them to the two main exits doors and the narrow, steep concrete stairs.
No Hand Rails
The exterior stairs featured steps 7.5 inches high and and 9.5 inches wide. By 1979, fire and national building codes called for a maximum height of 7 inches and a width of at least 11 inches. “Today, a stair with a step rise (height) of 7.5 inches with a tread depth (width) of only 9.5 inches would not even be permitted for new home stairs,” said Pauls, in a story I wrote for Hour Magazine in December, 2010.
The interior stairs, which again had no handrails as now required, had uneven widths because SmithGroup designers had construction joints often in the middle of the step. I can assume, considering there were 189 injury suits filed in the first 10 years, there have been many more since. And those injuries don't include fans who chose to forgo litigation.
One of those people who did file suit early on was Sarah F. Carrington, then 42, of Detroit. Carrington, who had tickets to see a Thomas Hearns fight on March 2, 1980, stumbled and fell down 20 steps inside JLA. Carrington said she fell as she and her husband waited for an usher to move two people that were sitting in their seats.
“The usher had me standing by the aisle at Row 40 so that people in our seats could be moved,” she told me months later.” It was pitch black up there, and I took one step back feeling for the next step. I fell backward and rolled almost to the landing when someone grabbed my heel and stopped me. I felt like I was dead.”
Exterior steps under construction (George Waldman photo)
Carrington was taken by ambulance to Detroit Receiving Hospital where she was treated for multiple cuts and bruises and a sprained back. She later filed suit against the city, the Red Wings and SmithGroup after missing more than 8 months of work.
Or take the experience of Henry Ford Hospital Orthopedic Surgeon Dr. E. Dennis Lyne, who attended a college basketball game between U-D and Duquesne in January, 1980. Dr. Lyne and his party had to navigate snow and ice on the exterior stairs.
Steep exterior steps
“I went to the game with a group of boys and several other men and we had to grab the railings hand over hand to keep from falling,” Dr. Lyne said. “One nine-year-old boy in our party fell down and rolled down four steps before we grabbed him. He was unhurt.
"I’m concerned about the steepness of those stairs, and I was shocked at the lack of ice removal for that game.”
Pauls, as well as other experts, strongly recommended that a lighted and enclosed canopy be constructed for the outside stairs, but city officials vetoed that proposal, citing lack of funds. Pauls actually preferred tearing out the exterior steps, replacing them with stairs that met building codes.
Media Cheerleaders
Unfortunately, in 1990 The News stopped doing follow up stories about the ongoing injuries occurring at JLA No other media have since paid any attention to the ongoing threat of public safety at this troubled arena. So, there is no updated record on the number of injuries that resulted in legal action against the city or the Red Wings.
I was deeply disappointed when my former newspaper printed a front page story in October waxing nostalgic about the past 37 years of Red Wings hockey at JLA. That story only made a cursory comment of how loyal hockey fans “tenderly negotiating crooked, uneven stairs…” There was no mention of the investigative work the News did back in 1979 or afterwards.
The News is far from alone in pretending that all is well with public assembly buildings like JLA and now Little Caesars Arena.
The Detroit broadcast and print media act as public relations agents for the new home of the Red Wings and now the Pistons. The $732.4 million now being spent, mostly public funds, on this new edifice is occurring while Detroit Public Schools stagger on the brink of bankruptcy and city services continue to struggle to provide minimal service.
No one has asked hard questions about whether the new arena meets building and safety codes. In 1979, it took a brave Detroit building inspector by the name of Fred Morris, who called the media about the outrageous construction violations that were taking place then.
Alarmingly, the local media today are behaving as corporate cheerleaders for a the new Little Caesars Arena, which is swallowing up precious public funds that are desperately needed for other things like schools, police, fire, neighborhood reconstruction. In fact, the public must now pay to demolish the JLA and dispose of this dangerous eyesore.
Since the Little Caesars Arena will be owned by the public, there are no property taxes applied to this expensive playpen for the Red Wings and Pistons.
Detroit media boast that any property tax money that might be collected from collateral developments is “captured,” meaning that those funds will be rolled back into other downtown projects. But this badly needed source of revenue should be going to Detroit Public Schools, Wayne County Community College, city of Detroit general operations and Wayne County government.
The Red Wings and Pistons will also continue to receive, free of charge, extensive police services for all of their events. Detroit should at least be following the lead of other cities that charge sports teams extra for providing police event squads at these special events.
After my stories detailing the problems with the JLA, the News published a full page editorial calling the entire project “A Disastrous Arena.” In closing, the paper said:
“The taxpayers’ money has been squandered on a public building studiously designed to maximize private profit while minimizing the financial return to the city. It is a building, too, that is downright striking in its surpassing ugliness Now we learn this remarkable project is unsafe as it stands.
“The Joe Louis Arena, even before it opens, ranks as a scandal for the history books.”
We can only wonder whether the Little Caesars Arena is headed in the same direction as the JLA.
