People keep volunteering to help fix up the site of the former Tiger Stadium. But the city of Detroit keeps saying no.
The latest effort is from Chevrolet, which offered to refurbish the baseball diamond so youth ballplayers could play on the field. However, the automaker says the offer still stands if the city changes its mind.
"This is our hometown. We know a lot of employees here would be happy to volunteer to work on the field," said Mike Albano, a Chevrolet spokesman. "We will respect the city's decision."
This comes on the heels of a July report that city officials have been preventing a volunteer grounds crew from cutting grass and pulling weeds from the field, asserting that the site isn't properly zoned for baseball to be played there anymore.
According to the News' story, Chevrolet was willing to provide employee volunteers — and pay them — to help maintain the diamond. They were in talks with the Old Tiger Stadium Conservancy Group to figure out a way to work together on preserving the field.
But the city is still holding out for a major developer to step in and build a major project on the site. And potential developers won't want to deal with the bad public relations that would come with booting a youth baseball league off the site.
Developers might not need to worry about that, however. The city of Detroit has been doing its best to generate plenty of bad publicity when it comes to letting the old Tiger Stadium site rot away.