DETROIT (WWJ) -- Detroit’s TCF Center is set to get a name change later this year, following TCF Banks’ merger with Huntington Bank.
There may be a hint at the new name of the convention center, formerly called Cobo Hall, according to a report from the Detroit Free Press, thanks to a federal trademark application.
The report says Huntington Bancshares, based in Columbus, Ohio, filed a federal trademark application last month for the name “Huntington Place,” though the application doesn’t indicate what the name would be for.
The application does, however, say it falls under a U.S. Patent and Trademark Office classification for “providing general purpose convention facilities,” according to the report.
Huntington and TCF officially completed their merger earlier this summer and all TCF branches are expected to become Huntington branches by October.
The downtown convention center near the Detroit Riverfront had previously been known as Cobo Hall since 1960, named after the former mayor of Detroit, Albert Cobo. His name was removed from the center in 2019 when his policies that had allegedly negatively impacted Detroit’s black community in the 1960s came under scrutiny.
Chemical Bank had initially bought the naming rights to the convention center -- a $33 million, 22-year deal -- before merging with TCF, which inherited the rights.
Now the center is set to get another name change sometime later this year, but there has been no word on when that will officially happen.
The name of the center reportedly won’t simply become “Huntington Center,” however, as that’s the name of an ice arena in Toldeo, Ohio, where the Detroit Red Wings affiliate Toledo Walleye play.
Huntington also reportedly filed another trademark application for “Huntington Bank Stadium” the same day as it filed one for “Huntington Place,” according to the Free Press. Huntington Bank Stadium is now the name of the University of Minnesota’s football stadium, which had been called TCF Bank Stadium since it opened in 2009.
Officials with Huntington, TCF and the TCF Center have all stayed quiet on the potential name change.
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