A Hotel for downtown Royal Oak?

[Novine]

"Why should these bedroom communities turn into miniature downtowns mimicking what we've lost in Detroit?"

Unless you're Bloomfield Hills, the communities can't survive on bedroom community tax bases over the long term. Look at how most of the inner-ring suburbs are barely scraping along. You need the tax base that comes from the downtown development to help pay for the services in both the city and the schools to maintain the property values in the residential areas. The two go hand-in-hand. "Nain rouge" also made a good point that the footprints of these downtowns are small. Once you get a few blocks outside of "downtown", there's no difference in the look or feel of the neighborhoods compared to neighboring communities without established downtowns.

[Detroitnerd]

So what would you say about the people in Royal Oak who resist these mega-projects? It seems they've tolerated businesses moving in on Main Street well enough -- those can easily be repurposed -- but the larger the footprint, the more of a burden it could be in the future ... At the very least, I think they have a point.

[nain rouge]

So what would you say about the people in Royal Oak who resist these mega-projects? It seems they've tolerated businesses moving in on Main Street well enough -- those can easily be repurposed -- but the larger the footprint, the more of a burden it could be in the future ... At the very least, I think they have a point.

I can understand that. A lot of people don't like change. But the other option is a slow death. As I mentioned earlier, Royal Oak's population has been going down for decades, now. Granted, I think the proposed hotel is a dumb idea, but a lot of what's happened downtown has been positive, I feel. The area around Main does seem a bit maxed out for development at the moment, but that could turn around. We'll see. Getting more higher paying jobs located inside Royal Oak would be a major positive step in that direction.

[DTWflyer]

Royal Oak's population is decreasing because of changing demographic, not due to a deterioriating city.

RO is gaining a younger and older population. There are a lot of seniors & empty nesters, plus there are a lot of young singles and young couples. Fewer school aged children and smaller families.

[Novine]

"So what would you say about the people in Royal Oak who resist these mega-projects?"

Mega-projects? I guess if no building is ever supposed to be taller than 3 stories, one could consider this a "mega-project". But it's an 8 story hotel and a 5 story mixed-use building within the limits of the previous commercial use. These are hardly mega-projects even in Royal Oak.

[Warrenite84]

Looks like the dealership has been removed. Is this project back on track or has something else taken its place?

[restoretheroar]

Looks like the dealership has been removed. Is this project back on track or has something else taken its place?

development agreement stated it had to be razed by 12/31 in order to maintain tax credits . i think they have until August to start construction or it reverts back to the city. Nothing imminent. Currently 4 hotel proposals in the city.

[Paris_of_the_Midwest]

As much as I want to see Royal Oak [[or any of our cities) become more urban, until Royal Oak actually starts gaining population, it's about maxed out for new retail spaces. Royal Oak and Ferndale [[which has also been losing people for decades) have both tried the "build it and they will come" approach outside of the immediate downtown areas, only to see the retail developments largely flop.

Most visitors to Royal Oak from other Metro Detroit cities aren't going to bother explore past a few blocks on Main and Washington. To build up an urban retail environment outside of those areas will first require more daily traffic from actual residents, which will only happen if Royal Oak can get back up to 70,000 or 80,000 residents.

While a hotel isn't retail, it's still within the service sector. And to get back up to 80,000, Royal Oak will to add jobs outside of the service sector, which tends to be low-paying.

For the record, between 2010 and 2015, per the U.S. Census Bureau, Royal Oak's population grew, albeit slightly. So it's not true that the city is losing population. Of course, Royal Oak is significantly down from its post-WWII population.

Copied from another internet forum, this provides some background and history on Royal Oak.

"Royal Oak has changed and evolved over the decades and still continues to remain relevant and be one of the more desirable places to live in Metro Detroit. A major part of this is due to is proximity to everything. The brief history of Royal Oak. Much of the downtown area dates back to its location on the streetcar/railroads coming out of Detroit and the downtown core and adjacent neighborhoods has houses from the early 1900s-1920s. Royal Oak, and adjacent areas of Berkley really took-off in the Post-WWII era with large tract housing and bungalows of the 1940s/50s vintage that dominate many of the Royal Oak neighborhoods. Royal Oak continued to build-out along the Woodward corridor through the 1960s and almost all of the original housing stock in 1960s or prior.

Back then Royal Oak was a booming community of families of the baby boom era. Some of the original residents on my street talk about the days in the 1960s “when there were 100 kids living on the street”. The population of Royal Oak in the 1950s/60s was double what it is today and exponentially more school-aged children. Through the 70s and 80s the opening of large malls like Oakland Mall and subsequent original big-boxes like Meijer took a lot of the retail out of downtown Royal Oak, by the late 80s much of the original and large retailers was gone. The opening of I-696 right around 1990 made Royal Oak that much more accessible to many and helped fortify Royal Oak as a bedroom community for business centers in places like Southfield, Troy, and Warren

By the early 90s, downtown Royal Oak kind of became this place of funky shops, boutiques, and counter-culture, early-grunge era establishments. Kind of like what Ferndale has been more recently. Now by the mid-1990s, many of the original residents of Royal Oak were retired, moved-out, or continued to age in-place. Since Detroit prior was desolate and undesirable by almost any measure, Royal Oak became the de-facto place for younger people, young professionals, and young recent college graduates to congregate, for nightlife, and to live. The large number of rental properties sprung-up in the areas adjacent to downtown, the bigger bars/high-energy nightlife places came into full swing in the late 90s/early 2000s. The hipster/funky/counter-culture/gay scene moved south to Ferndale and downtown Royal Oak took on its “frat party” vibe.

In the early/mid 2000s, Royal Oak went through a painful restructuring of the school district due to huge number of excess classrooms/buildings and significant number of school-aged children in the district. Many elementary schools were consolidated, buildings sold-off and redeveloped into new housing, a single Middle school, and single high school were created. The number of rental properties continued to grow in the city and so forth. There was a brief building-boom of condos in the downtown areas but that has quieted down in the past few years

Royal Oak now is experiencing a pretty big shift at the moment here in 2016. The past 2 years have seen record number of tear-down/reconstruction of older housing stock in the city; small/distressed houses being torn-down and replaced with $450-500k houses, more younger families with school-aged children moving in, and more renovation/rebuilding activity than ever. Some of this is the spill-over effect from Birmingham and its sky-high housing prices; Royal Oak is far more affordable and reasonable and also due to the number of new jobs/people working in downtown Detroit. This trend is likely to continue as the downtown area attracts more professional jobs and younger generations shun the McMansion/exurban lifestyle of prior generations."

[EGrant]

The past 2 years have seen record number of tear-down/reconstruction of older housing stock in the city; small/distressed houses being torn-down and replaced with $450-500k houses, more younger families with school-aged children moving in, and more renovation/rebuilding activity than ever. Some of this is the spill-over effect from Birmingham and its sky-high housing prices;

Very noticeable trend. These small, mostly ranch homes are being replaced with mammoth Craftsman style homes that take up a lot of the parcel. While they are super expensive, I do like the style. Saw this trend a ton in Birmingham, where entire streets have been converted to Craftsman homes, and now it is in RO.

[Paris_of_the_Midwest]

It seems Royal Oak is working hard to create a balanced downtown between residential, shopping, restaurants/bars and office space. Increased office space will help bolster daytime foot traffic and retail shopping.

Large downtown Royal Oak office building set for construction. http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article...n-construction