Dan Gilbert to bring ultra-HD TV viewing venue to downtown Detroit for live sports, events

Posted by Admin November 1, 2024 Sports

Dan Gilbert plans to bring an immersive, ultra-high-definition TV viewing venue for sports and events to Detroit.

Cosm, a Los Angeles-based firm, announced Friday that it intends to open its next “experiential entertainment venue” in downtown Detroit. The venue would be part of the Monroe Blocks development next to Campus Martius, a development that Gilbert’s Bedrock real estate firm has been planning to do for years.

The Cosm venue would feature high-resolution LED screens and a 12K-resolution LED dome for viewing live sports events, as well as Cirque du Soleil and immersive arts exhibitions. Cosm says it has partnerships with the NBA, the NFL, UFC, NBC Sports, TNT Sports and FOX Sports.

The Detroit venue would be the company’s fourth, after Los Angeles, Dallas and a future Atlanta location. A recent Los Angeles Times story described how the LA Cosm venue, with a capacity of 1,500 to 2,000, features plush seating, a wraparound screen and was selling tickets priced in the hundreds of dollars for Game 3 of the World Series.

Cosm would apparently replace an earlier Bedrock plan to build a 1,500 to 2,000-seat concert venue in the Monroe Blocks development in partnership with a United Kingdom-based company known as tvg Hospitality.

In August, a Bedrock representative said they were dropping the earlier concert venue plan because they didn’t want to compete with the future 2,000-seat venue that is part of the $125 million Music Hall expansion project.

Cosm’s announcement said details regarding the timeline for opening the Detroit location and its events schedule will be released later. A Cosm representative could not immediately be reached Friday regarding the size and capacity of the venue. The venue’s architect will be Detroit-based Rossetti.

“I can’t think of a better place than Detroit for our fourth venue,” Jeb Terry, Cosm’s president and CEO, said in a news release.

“Detroit embodies the right mix of sports fandom, enterprising spirit and energy; and we are honored to be part of the downtown revitalization that Dan Gilbert and his team are driving,” the announcement said. “Cosm Detroit will be the always-on heartbeat of downtown, offering unparalleled sports and entertainment experiences for Detroiters to share together.”

The Cosm would be built near the former “Monroe Street Midway” and the old National Theatre building, 118 Monroe St., which contractors razed in January to make way for the NFL draft stage.

The Downtown Development Authority has given Bedrock until next May to begin construction of the first phase of the three-phase Monroe Blocks project, which would include the COSM venue. The second phase, to include residential, retail and a possible grocery, is to begin in October 2026. The third phase, an office tower and more retail, is to begin in January 2028.

Contact JC Reindl: 313-378-5460 or jcreindl@freepress.com. Follow him on X @jcreindl