PONTIAC, Mich. (AP) -- The owner of the Canadian company that is paying $583,000 to buy the 80,300-seat Pontiac Silverdome says he wants to bring football, baseball and other sports to the suburban Detroit stadium.
Triple Properties Inc. of Toronto said earlier it wanted to use the Silverdome, the former home of the Detroit Lions and Detroit Pistons, for soccer.
"I like sports and I like being involved with sports, so I hope to bring sporting events people will like," chief executive Andreas Apostolopoulos told the Detroit Free Press for a story Friday. "I'm not just thinking soccer, but football or baseball or whatever."
Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, the Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd played at the Silverdome, and Pope John Paul II held a Mass there in 1987. It also hosted Super Bowl XVI in 1982.
The Lions moved to Detroit's Ford Field in 2002, and years of municipal efforts to sell the Silverdome foundered. Pontiac has had to foot a $1.5 million annual maintenance bill for the largely unused stadium.
The Silverdome was built in 1975 for $56 million and was sold at auction for the equivalent of about $7.25 a seat.
The deal is expected to close by the end of the year, and Apostolopoulos said he hopes to have tentative plans ready by January.
He said he was interested in the Silverdome and its 127-acre site from the moment he heard of it.
"My son saw they were advertising it and called me while I was in Greece," Apostolopoulos said. "I wanted to get back to find out more, so I made my trip shorter."
(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
