Palace Sports & Entertainment was kind enough to donate a number of items to the City of Auburn Hills.  Yes, they have officially moved all of their operations to their new facilities. 

On Monday, a handful of city staff was given the opportunity to make some final selections of items that will soon be headed to some of our municipal facilities.  While I never spent a lot of time at The Palace, I certainly did see a handful of shows and games over the years which created some outstanding memories for me and my family. 

One of my fondest memories was back in the very early 2000’s when a train brought the animals for the circus into town.  The train was unloaded just north of Auburn Hills and the animals were walked down to The Palace.  My son Josh, who was probably about six or seven at the time, got to walk with the elephants with a police escort.  There’s something you’ll never forget! 

Today, along with a handful of city staff, I walked through many areas of The Palace that were not accessible to the public.  But we were also in many of the public areas too such as the suites and the general seating areas.  Clearly it was bittersweet for us to walk through what is now a vacant arena.  This arena was the best of the best for many years and seeing it shuttered certainly caused a lot of great memories to come flooding back into our heads.

Time marches on and so do the Pistons.  We wish them nothing but success in their new home at LCA and we extend our “thanks” for the donations being made to the Auburn Hills community.  

Tom Tanghe, City Manager