Kilpatrick toured the North American International Auto Show at the Cobo Convention Center in Detroit late last week and helped cut the ribbon to open a new $800,000 entrance to the 100,000-sf Michigan Hall exhibit space.

"Last year, I told you step one would be rolling out the red carpet and improving the look of the outside and I told you by this year, step two, the Michigan Hall build-out would be done," Kilpatrick told the media, including GlobeSt.com during his annual visit to the auto show. "On Jan. 9, we'll tell you what step three is going to be. Are we going to build a new facility or are we going to add on and expand here."

The mayor will be the keynote speaker at a luncheon meeting Friday of the Detroit Economic Club. Speculation has been running high that the mayor will announce plans to build a new convention center in the city containing at least one million and possibly as much as 1.5 million sf of convention space. The catch will be how to pay for such a facility, which could cost in excess of $1.3 billion.