How does this work? What do you think is going to happen? Detroit sure needs the money . . .

An opposition group, the Old Tiger Stadium Conservancy, has until June 1 to raise $369,000 to try to save part of Tiger Stadium, even temporarily. The group includes Ernie Harwell, the retired Tigers radio broadcaster.

If that goal is reached, Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, said he would seek greater financing in the 2009 federal budget to preserve the oldest part of the structure around the infield and redevelop the playing field for amateur teams.

“The field is sort of sacred ground,” Levin said in a telephone interview.


Jeff Wattrick, a spokesman for the conservancy, said three “civic-minded philanthropic groups” had discussed contributing money to stave off a full demolition that may begin in weeks. But he said he could not reveal their names because he did not want to spread false optimism.

“So many different plans have come and gone,” he said. “We sensed a real fatigue.”

Complicating everyone’s calculations is the deal the Detroit Economic Development Corporation made with the two demolition companies that have promised to tear down Tiger Stadium for the scrap steel, copper, aluminum, brass and nickel they can salvage.

It would take less than a year to demolish, said Waymon Guillebeaux, a vice president of the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation. But it would be even faster and cheaper, he said, to tear the place down without preserving even a corner.

So the demolition companies have promised to pay the city $300,000 if they do not have to preserve the corner piece, Guillebeaux said. But they want an answer by June 1, he said. The companies — MCM Management Corporation of Bloomfield Hills and the Farrow Group of Detroit — did not respond to a request for comment.

Guillebeaux said that his group was cooperating with the preservationists, but that the economic downturn discouraged such plans. Detroit has been hit harder than many cities. “To try to raise money to just hold on to a portion of an old stadium might not be easy,” he said, adding that developers would be more interested if the site were cleared.