Michigan’s hard times continue. Real estate is especially telling with nearly free properties, mansions included, to historic once affluent neighbourhoods left to ruin, once the homes of American industry titans.

I remember being shocked in 2005 to hear Skydome was sold for $25 million, to Rogers Communications. It cost $570 million and was completed in 1989. In 2005 dollars, that’s approximately $900 million, an $875 million discount.

Last week the Pontiac Silverdome sold to a Canadian real estate group for $583,000. The 80,000 seat Silverdome cost $55 million to build, completed in 1975; in 2009 dollars, $220,000,000 million.

Skydome sold for 2.7% of it’s 2005 cost of construction. Silverdome sold for 0.27% of it’s construction, in 2009 dollars.

I do not have data on the profitability of these stadiums before the sales, and I do not know a measure of how “worth it” such investments are. From a realestate perspective they seem to be colossal bargains now, wastes of vast fortune to which better uses we could imagine.

(Aside: The Silverdome also features certainly the most shitty 3D building on Google Earth. I’ll coin the term, and generously dub this 2½D. And so the recent sale price of this property might have suffered further, the purchaser affected by this eyesore.)