State Fairgrounds Sale to Magic Johnson Could Be Approved Wednesday
Hall of Fame basketball star Earvin “Magic” Johnson, along with a team of developers, may get permission as early as Wednesday afternoon to buy the 157-acre State Fairgrounds site in Detroit that has sat idle since the fair shutdown there in 2009.
The Michigan Land Bank Fast Track Authority could vote Wednesday to sell the site for $4.65 million for what would be among the largest development projects in terms of acreage of any recent development deals in the city, the Free Press has learned.
The development team, known as Magic Plus LLC, says it will build a movie theater, big-box retail, and related development, retaining a few of the historic fairgrounds buildings but demolishing others.
A spokesman for Southfield-based Redico, a real estate firm working with Magic Plus, declined to comment pending the authority’s meeting on Wednesday.
“This deal is as complex as it is conceptual and it would be inappropriate to comment on what the State Land Bank Authority may consider at its meeting,” the spokesman, Bruce Babiarz, said in an email to the Free Press.
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