Detroit's fallen stadiums: What happened to The Palace of Auburn Hills?

This is Part 2 of a six-part series looking back at the arenas and stadiums that housed some of Detroit’s greatest teams over the past century. Come back to freep.com every day this week for more historic Detroit sports site memories.

Known more simply as “the Palace,” The Palace of Auburn Hills was the home of the NBA's Detroit Pistons from 1988-2017, the WNBA's Detroit Shock from 1998-2009, the Arena Football League's Detroit Fury from 2001-04 and the International Hockey League's Detroit Vipers from 1994-2001, as well as several soccer teams. The Palace was constructed by Pistons owner Bill Davidson, who did not want to share Joe Louis Arena with the Detroit Red Wings, though the two had previously shared Olympia Stadium from 1957-61. The team moved from Olympia, on Grand River, to Cobo Arena, by the Detroit River, in 1961 and then north to the Pontiac Silverdome, where the Detroit Lions played, in 1978.

Davidson wanted the Pistons to play somewhere he owned, so he ordered construction of a new building in Auburn Hills. It was only five miles from the Silverdome, but was 32 miles from the heart of Detroit. It was the first privately financed NBA arena. The Palace included plush seats instead of hard plastic, an entirely new kind of suite and an early version of the giant video screens now ubiquitous at sports arenas, all for about $90 million.

The Palace’s first event was a Sting concert on Aug. 13, 1988, but the main event began when the Pistons defeated the Charlotte Hornets, 94-85, on Nov. 5. They won the franchise’s first NBA championship that season and another one the next season. They added one more, in 2004, before they moved back downtown to Little Caesars Arena in 2017.

The team’s immediate success after finally moving into the Palace only felt like salt in the wound for fans in the city. In 21 years downtown, the team had exactly three winning seasons. Evan as tenants in the Silverdome, the Pistons set NBA attendance records but rarely won – and sometimes had to relocate major playoff games, as they did for a 1984 Game 5 loss to the New York Knicks.

Now, after getting a home of their own in the suburbs, the Pistons was suddenly soaring – and some of its most loyal fans couldn’t watch. In 1990, Sports Illustrated's Jack McCallum wrote, “This was not the first pro sports franchise to relocate to the suburbs, nor will it be the last. But because the Pistons' recent achievements stand in such stark contrast to the city of Detroit's bevy of social and economic woes, and because the mayor has been so critical of the team, the club's decision to leave downtown embodies all sorts of sociological issues, including city versus suburbs, black versus white and poor versus affluent.”

McCallum noted that the crowd at those Pistons games was mostly white, compared with a much more diverse crowd when they were located downtown. But many of the downtown games had been half-empty. Moving the team out to the suburbs drastically decreased the diversity, but increased the profits. Davidson was, above all, a businessman, and wanted his team to be located wherever would make him the most money.

So, unfortunately for city fans, success continued out in the suburbs. In addition to the Pistons, the Shock and Vipers won titles calling the Palace home. Red Wings legend Gordie Howe skated his last shift on the ice of the Palace in his lone game for the Detroit Vipers in 1997, making him the only hockey player to play in six consecutive decades. The Shock won three titles as Palace tenants (though two were clinched at other metro Detroit venues due to conflicts), giving the Palace a new address t “Six Championship Drive” – three for the Pistons and three for the Shock. (The Shock departed for Tulsa following the franchise's sale after Davidson's 2009 death, and now play in Texas as the Dallas Wings.)

Over the years, the Palace was home to numerous concerts as well as one of the most infamous events in NBA history: the “Malice at the Palace,” on Nov. 19, 2004. A fight between Pistons center Ben Wallace and Pacers forward Ron Artest escalated when a fan threw a drink at Artest, causing Artest to charge into the crowd and tipping off a melee in the stands. Nine players were suspended and five fans were banned from Pistons home games for life.

No matter what was happening, the Palace was always the center of attention.

The Pistons' departure from the Palace began when Platinum Equity CEO Tom Gores, bought the franchise, as well as its related entertainment holdings, from Davidson's widow, Karen, in 2011. A few months before Little Caesars Arena was set to open in downtown Detroit in 2017, Gores announced the Pistons would share the arena with the Detroit Red Wings, creating a partnership with Olympia Entertainment, owned the Ilitch family. Gores thought moving the Pistons downtown would encourage foot-traffic fans to attend games, something the Palace lacked in its suburban location. The last person to perform at the Palace was Bob Seger on Sept. 23, 2017.

The Palace sat empty from 2017-19, when it was purchased by a joint venture and demolished on July 11, 2020. In 2023, General Motors announced it had purchased the site. The lot is under construction as GM builds a parts plant on the site.

Six Championship Drive is now a dirt road filled with construction materials with no celebration of the history that preceded it.

Contact Matthew Auchincloss at [email protected].

The series

Come back all week for our series on Detroit's fallen stadiums:

July 21: Tiger Stadium.

July 22: The Palace of Auburn Hills.

July 23: Cobo Arena.

July 24: Joe Louis Arena.

July 25: Pontiac Silverdome.

July 26: Olympia Stadium.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit's fallen stadiums: The Palace of Auburn Hills