Motel at 8 Mile/Woodward to be converted to apartments
https://www.freep.com/story/news/loc...ts/1572060001/
http://www.dailydetroit.com/2019/06/...s-coffee-shop/
A former low-budget Ferndale motel — where stays often included enough drugs, violence or prostitution to draw the city's ire — is expected to reopen this fall as a trendy apartment complex.
A $3.5 million renovation effort will turn the 60-room, two-story Motorama motel on the northwest corner of Woodward Avenue and 8 Mile Road into the 35-room Urbane Ferndale, with plans for a bakery and coffee shop, Urbane Apartments founder Eric Brown said.
"My plan is to try to leverage the iconic nature of 8 Mile," he said.
Before the motel closed, Ferndale police were called more than 50 times to the address in the first nine months of 2018. Guests would break windows, use and sell crack cocaine and heroin, punch and choke each other and get caught with needles, outstanding warrants and more, according to police reports.
In early 2016, similar reports and an undercover investigation led city officials to revoke the motel's license. The business owner sued the city, and Ferndale Mayor Dave Coulter said the lawsuit is still in the courts.
"What was happening there was unacceptable," Coulter said Wednesday. "Our focus was to get them to change their operations and run a law-abiding business. Their other option was to sell."
Brown said the purchase of the property closed on Tuesday. And Coulter said Brown has the city's support.
"I hope it will create a safer and more inviting entryway into Ferndale and Oakland County," Coulter said.
Brown said the one-bedroom units will be about $875-$950 per month, and the two-bedroom units will be about $1,200.
