Ilitch Holdings Inc. reports it's a $1.6 billion enterprise; Nevertheless taxpayers can expect to fund their hockey arena

February 2, 2007

Freep.com

Ilitch empire grows but no word on Joe
February 2, 2007

BY TOM WALSH
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST

PADUCAH, Ky. -- Life is good these days in the Ilitch family businesses.

Little Caesar Enterprises, the pizza chain at the heart of the family fortune, added more than 200 stores in 2006.

Up to 100 more new stores could be opened in the next two years by U.S. military veterans under a new program inspired by an Ilitch gift to wounded Iraq war veteran Robbie Doughty.

Doughty's Little Caesars franchise's grand opening in Kentucky on Thursday drew Ilitch family members from Detroit and a congratulatory note from President George W. Bush.The Detroit Tigers baseball team, owned by family patriarch Mike Ilitch, 77, is reaping the benefits of last year's improbable run to the World Series, selling tickets like crazy for the 2007 season.

MotorCity Casino, owned by Mike's wife, Marian Ilitch, is nearing completion of its permanent $300-million, 400-room casino-hotel near Grand River and the Lodge freeway in Detroit.

Ilitch Holdings, the umbrella firm for the family food and entertainment interests, is now a $1.6-billion enterprise, with double the $800 million in annual revenue it produced in 2000, said Christopher Ilitch, 41, president and CEO.

Amid this run of prosperity, the biggest hanging question in Ilitchland today remains, "What about Joe Louis Arena?"

What will the family do about the 28-year-old home of the Detroit Red Wings hockey team, which occupies a prime spot on Detroit's riverfront alongside the Cobo Center convention complex? Renovate the existing Joe? Or build a new arena, perhaps on land the family owns behind its Fox Theatre headquarters?

Pose that question, as we do whenever we chat up the Ilitch clan, and you get to see Mike and Chris Ilitch dance, feint and weave, as they did Thursday when I raised the subject.

Mike Ilitch, who told me in late September that a decision could be 30 days away, sounded for a moment Thursday like a man who'd made up his mind.

"We're there, pretty much. I think we got our homework all done," Ilitch said Thursday, about a year after the family announced it had hired a firm to study the build-or-renovate question.

"We don't see anything standing in the way of being able to go forward other than carving out the deal. We're looking forward to making sure that what we do now makes sense, that we can build it right, so that we can project our business ... and make it a profitable operation."

Hmmm. Sounds like the aim is a new arena, yes?

In years past, Mike Ilitch added, "I wasn't even thinking about another arena. We had in the back of our minds that we probably redo the Joe. You know, we kept thinking that we've got the water there, people are used to coming, that's kind of the mindset that we had. But, you know, times change, with the development that's going on in the city."

Double-hmmm. Definitely sounds like the tilt is toward building new, yes?

But then a hem: "Whatever we do, we've got to make sure it's the right thing."

And then a haw: "It's just a matter of deciding what we're going to do."

Then he deferred to son Chris Ilitch for the official word.

And Chris insisted that remodeling the Joe is "an extremely viable alternative."

When I suggested that a renovation decision could be announced immediately, while the build-new option might take longer to nail down if land parcels must be acquired for adequate parking at a new site, etc., Chris Ilitch replied, "If we want to play cat-and-mouse on this and read tea leaves, we can also point out that we made significant improvements at the Joe this year: a video-wall scoreboard and a renovated Gordie Howe entrance."

OK, that was enough sparring over the future of the Joe Louis Arena.

I sidled over to Doughty, 32, who lost both legs to an Iraqi roadside bomb explosion in 2004, and his partner, fellow veteran Lloyd Allard, to talk about their new career as pizza franchise operators, thanks to the gift of a new pizza outlet from Mike Ilitch.

There was nothing hesitant about their plans. "Once we get this one up and going, we're going to open one in Clarksville (Tennessee, Allard's hometown 90 minutes from Paducah) and everywhere in between," Allard vowed.

Contact TOM WALSH at 313-223-4430 or twalsh@freepresscom. For information on Little Caesars' discounted franchise opportunities for veterans, visit www.littlecaesars.com/veterans. Or call the Center for Veterans Enterprise at 866-584-2344.