Can one of the biggest failures in Detroit become the home of an MLS franchise?  According to Crain’s Detroit Business, Triple Properties out of Canada that owns the Pontiac Silverdome has been in talks to bring a team to Detroit but was wary of putting a team in Pontiac (read the full article here.)

Now Triple Properties has submitted a bid to purchase the failed jail site in downtown Detroit to build a stadium, mall, retail area, condos and office buildings on the property site.

Real time map of the proposed stadium site (From Crain’s Detroit Business)

Now Dan Gilbert and Rock Financial are one of the other groups interested in purchasing the site along with other companies involved in the building of jails.  Again according to Crain’s, Rock Financial’s plan to build on the site would require public and private funding, while the Triple Properties plan would be all privately funded.

From Crain’s Detroit Business

What does this mean?  With the emergence of Detroit City FC it shows that Detroit and the state are ready to embrace a soccer franchise here.  The Palace had the Rockers and Neon/Safari on the indoor circuit back in the 1990’s and were pretty well attended.  I think that the city has the people and fans to appreciate and support a MLS team here in Detroit.

We will have to wait and see if Triple Properties bid wins the property and if MLS will give Detroit an expansion franchise, but for soccer fans this would be a dream come true.  After visiting Jeld-Wen Field in the middle of downtown Portland showed that a major city can have this open soccer stadium and the fans will flock to it.

So what do you think Detroit, can Detroit have and support a MLS franchise?  Or would this just become another ruin sitting in the middle of Detroit?  Let us know at DetroitSportsBloggers.com or on Facebook and Twitter.