Pontiac Silverdome To Be Demolished This Summer
PONTIAC (WWJ) - A wrecking ball will be taken to the decaying Pontiac Silverdome by late summer, now that a demolition contractor has been selected for the job.
The Adamo Group, based in Detroit, has a resume of high-profile demos including the old Dodge Main Plant and currently the Georgia Dome of Atlanta.
The Oakland Press reports the confirmation of the selection of the contractor was dated May 10, according to Pontiac Mayor Deirdre Waterman.
The selection of a contractor is part of a consent agreement after the city of Pontiac took the property owners to court to move the demo process along, following alleged violations of building and safety codes and zoning ordinances.
The owners now have a June 9 deadline to submit their demo plans to the city. The president of Adamo expects work on the site to begin in the following 45 days.
The Silverdome was the home of the Detroit Lions from 1975 and the Detroit Pistons from 1978 to 1988. The Lions left the Silverdome in 2001 for Ford Field, the venue closed in 2006, and Pontiac sold the stadium at auction in 2009.
It reopened in 2010 and hosted several events, but closed again three years later, with initial demolition plans announced in 2015.
More recently, the dilapidated dome has appeared in the trailer for the upcoming film "Transformers: The Last Knight." It has also served as a parking lot for hundreds repurchased Volkswagen diesel vehicles amid the carmaker's emissions cheating scandal, but the city said property owners did not have the proper permission to store cars there.