Comerica Park: The Ballpark and Woodward Avenue Around It

Public transportation to Comerica Park runs on two rail systems and three bus routes. The Detroit People Mover serves the ballpark at its Broadway and Grand Circus Park stations. The QLine streetcar serves it at the Montcalm Street stop. Bus service includes SMART FAST Michigan 261 and Woodward 461 and 462, and DDOT Route 4.

On parking, the Tigers publish some of it and not the rest. Official general parking lots are open to the public on a first-come, first-served basis and open two hours before game time. Pricing for standard general and reserved parking is not published by the Tigers online, so no such price appears here. Reserved spaces exist for season ticket holders and suite guests, on (313) 471-2255. Passes for group buses and oversized vehicles are $60 per vehicle, bought through the Group Sales Department on (313) 471-BALL or at Lot 4 on arrival, and limited to Tigers games only. The club also lists a partnership with SpotHero for advance parking reservations, without naming lots or stating prices.

Woodward Avenue is the street this guide follows. The ballpark is at 2100; the theatres, bars, parks and churches around it are numbered along the same avenue and the streets off it.

Two theatres by the same architect stand on Woodward Avenue, at 2211 and at 2115. The Fox Theatre, at 2211 Woodward Avenue, opened in 1928 to C. Howard Crane's design, an Art Deco interior blending Burmese, Indian, Persian, Chinese and Hindu motifs; it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985, designated a National Historic Landmark in 1989 and made a Michigan State Historic Site in 1991, and 313 Presents operates it for its owner, Olympia Entertainment. The Fillmore Detroit, at 2115 Woodward Avenue, was built in 1925 as The State Theatre, also by Crane, in a Beaux-Arts Italian Renaissance style within the Francis Palms Building; it passed through the names Palms-State Theatre, Palms Theatre and State Theatre before Live Nation rebranded it in 2007, with Fergie playing the inaugural show on June 13. The twelve-story building holds 2,900 people and contains the State Bar & Grill, which has its own entrance. It has been on the National Register since November 24, 1982.

The bars each carry a piece of the city's building history. Cliff Bell's, at 2030 Park Avenue, opened as a jazz club in 1935, closed in 1985, reopened in 2005 and was renovated in 2006, and it continues to host jazz performances in an Art Deco setting alongside a food and bar menu. Elwood Bar & Grill, at 300 East Adams Avenue, occupies a Streamline Moderne building designed by Charles Noble and built in 1936 at the corner of Elizabeth and Woodward; Chuck Forbes bought it in the 1980s, and when Comerica Park's construction threatened it in 1997 the Forbes family moved the building at their own expense to its present address, rededicating it on Detroit Tigers Opening Day, April 5, 2002. Grand Trunk Pub, at 612 Woodward Avenue, is an American restaurant and bar serving fish and chips, chicken and waffles, reubens, and an extensive Michigan craft beer selection.

Two public squares come from the same plan. Judge Augustus Woodward laid out Detroit's rebuilding after the 1805 fire, and both Grand Circus Park and Campus Martius Park descend from it. Grand Circus Park, on Woodward Avenue between Clifford, John R and Adams Streets, was established in 1850 and built out in 1867; roughly 5 acres, bisected by Woodward, with the Russell Alger Memorial Fountain by the architect Henry Bacon, and a People Mover station of the same name serving it. Its historic district went on the National Register in 1983, with boundary expansions in 2000 and 2012. Campus Martius Park, at Woodward and Michigan Avenues, was the plan's focal point and takes its name from the square in Marietta, Ohio; the original was lost in the 1900s to vehicular traffic, and the re-established 1.2-acre park was dedicated on November 19, 2004, with two performance stages, sculptures and a seasonal ice rink. The Detroit 300 Conservancy runs it, and it hosts the annual Motown Winter Blast and the city's Christmas tree-lighting.

Two churches on the same stretch predate all of it. Central United Methodist Church, at 23 East Adams Street, has a congregation tracing to 1804; the First Methodist Society of Michigan, formed in 1810, was the first organized Protestant congregation in Michigan Territory, and the current building's cornerstone was laid on July 3, 1866. Gordon W. Lloyd and Smith, Hinchman & Grylls designed it in Tudor Revival and Gothic Revival; the sanctuary was redesigned in 1936 with carved Appalachian white oak and a 30-foot reredos, and Henry Lee Willett Studios stained glass was added in 1956. It became a Michigan State Historic Site in 1977 and joined the National Register in 1982, and it houses social-service organizations alongside an active congregation. St. John's Episcopal Church, at 2326 Woodward Avenue, was established as a parish in 1858 by Henry Porter Baldwin, later Michigan's governor and a U.S. senator; a 150-seat chapel of 1859 proved too small and Jordan & Anderson's larger church was consecrated on December 10,

1861. It is Victorian Gothic Revival, 170 by 65 feet with a 105-foot belfry, in rubble limestone with Kelly Island sandstone trim, with six memorial stained-glass windows installed between 1880 and 1954. It joined the National Register in 1982 and became a Michigan State Historic Site in 1987, and its congregation still uses the traditional 1928 Book of Common Prayer.

Little Caesars Arena, at 2645 Woodward Avenue, opened on September 5, 2017 in Midtown Detroit as part of the District Detroit sports and entertainment district, near the Cass Corridor. It is home to the Detroit Red Wings of the NHL and the Detroit Pistons of the NBA, and PWHL Detroit is set to begin play there in 2026.

One thing to know about the record behind the venues. The Fox Theatre, The Fillmore Detroit, Cliff Bell's and Grand Trunk Pub each rest on a business's or an operator's own site, or on undated encyclopedia prose, for any evidence that they are trading now. So this guide does not say those four are open. It does not say they have closed either: there is no evidence of that, and none should be inferred. Elwood Bar & Grill is the one bar here whose status comes from somewhere else — Historic Detroit, an independent architectural-history site, carries a status field for the building reading "Open", updated in April 2026.

Comerica Park cost $300 million to build, and its first game was played on April 11, 2000 against the Seattle Mariners. Populous — formerly HOK Sport — SHG Inc. and the Rockwell Group were the architects. Capacity was 41,083 as of 2018, and the recorded baseball attendance record is 45,280, set on July 26, 2008 against the Chicago White Sox. The field measures 342 feet to left, 412 to center and 330 to right.

The name has changed hands on paper twice, and is about to change again. Comerica Bank secured the naming rights in December 1998, agreeing to pay $66 million over 30 years, and extended the agreement in 2018 through 2034. Fifth Third Bank then acquired Comerica Bank — announced October 6, 2025, completed February 1, 2026, a $10.9 billion deal that made Fifth Third the ninth-largest U.S. bank with about $294 billion in assets — and the ballpark's own encyclopedia article states that it will be rebranded before the 2027 season. Fifth Third's own article corroborates the acquisition but does not discuss the naming rights. As of August 2026 the ballpark is Comerica Park.

Two features have their own history. A large fountain sits behind center field: General Motors sponsored it from 2000 to 2008, and it became the Chevrolet Fountain when GM's sponsorship returned in 2010. And the tigers, which are more scattered than they are often described: one 15-foot tiger statue stands at the main entrance, and eight additional heroic-sized tiger statues are placed throughout the park, two of them prowling atop the left-field scoreboard.

The players are marked twice over. A statue of Ty Cobb stands without a retired number, because he played before Tigers players wore numbers. At the left-center field concourse are statues of nearly all Tigers players whose numbers have been retired; Jackie Robinson's number, retired league-wide in 1997, is instead on the wall in right-center field.

The franchise itself was established in 1894 as a member of the minor-league Western League and became a charter member of the major-league American League in 1901.