Mt. Clemens: What's the deal?

[nain rouge]

Macomb County, as we know, is the king of sprawl and home of the legendary Hall Road. People like to rag on Oakland County, but at least it has downtown Ferndale, Royal Oak, Birmingham, and Rochester - yes, even something like downtown Rochester would seem like a big deal in Macomb.

The only real respite from the sprawl in Macomb is Mt. Clemens, which has been the capitol of Macomb since 1818. Thanks to huge swell of interest in Mt. Clemens's supposedly unique mineral water in the late 1800s, Mt. Clemens became a major tourist destination dubbed "Bath City". Visitors from across the country arrived to heal themselves in the city's many bathhouses, undertaking treatment courses that sometimes lasted weeks. Before urban sprawl was a gleam in L. Brooks Patterson's eye, Mt. Clemens was built up some 25 miles north of downtown Detroit. It was a boom town, full of apartments and entertainment venues - it even had a raceway and a casino.

By the 1940s, though, mineral baths had fallen out of public favor. Significant advances in modern medicine led people to look to science instead of nature for cures. Though nearly all of the hotels and bathhouses associated with Mt. Clemens' glory days are now gone, a sizable downtown and a population of about 16,000 people still remains. Today, Mt. Clemens bills itself as the entertainment and dining capitol of company, and even gives people on jury duty at the county court a beeper so they can leave the courtroom and visit downtown.

In an era when downtowns and walkable communities are all the rage, it's worthwhile to ask why Mt. Clemens hasn't seen the same resurgence in interest the downtowns along Woodward have. Mt. Clemens' downtown comprises several city blocks, features a small urban park, and generally looks like you'd expect a downtown to look.

For a small community, Mt. Clemens is fairly progressive and forward thinking. In the early 1980s, the city had the foresight to not only create, but to pour considerable resources into a Downtown Development Authority [[DDA), which helped revitalize Mt. Clemens going into the 1990s. In addition, the city also has an art center, a very active historical society, was able to attract Oakland University's first satellite campus to its downtown, and is the most likely candidate for Macomb's planned Hands On Children's Museum.

Architecturally, Mt. Clemens has some real gems. St. Joseph's Sanitorium, one of the city's original bathhouses, still exists and is relatively well-preserved, although it's not utilized for any purpose currently. The Old Macomb County Building is a 219 foot art deco structure that is somehow a one-of-a-kind building in a metro region overflowing with art deco skyscrapers. Built in 1930s and 1940s, it's the center of Mt. Clemens' modest but real skyline. The imposing busts of warriors and sailors peak out from the top of the building, gazing over the city, and fanciful plaques dedicated to humanity's progress dot its outside walls. The historic, dense downtown is just a block away from the building, and its also a short walk away from neighborhoods with large Tudor, Craftsman, and Italianate homes built during the height of the Mt. Clemens Bath City era.

In the last few years, lofts and other residential spaces have even opened up in and around downtown, with some success. What more could you want? And yet, it apparently hasn't been enough. A recent report by Mt. Clemens' DDA stated that the city's downtown was showing "signs of distress". The 7-story Price Building nearby sits vacant with its window open, and its far from the only sign of vacancy. About three-fifths of the tenants in the downtown area are either restaurants or bars, taking up over 30 commercial spaces. This gives the downtown a touristy feel, and there is often an alarming lack of pedestrians because of the lack of proper mixed use - there's no reason for locals to visit the area on a frequent basis. People drive up to a specific bar or restaurant and then drive off afterwards.

Also, the DDA has been far from perfect at times. A huge part of what I imagine was once part of downtown is now a series of surface parking lofts situated behind what remains. Wouldn't one decently sized parking garage have been better? The areas around downtown could be more pedestrian friendly, too. There aren't many clearly designated crosswalks.

Finally, what I think is really hurting downtown Mt. Clemens is the lack of culture - and I'm not sure how they can fix that. Mt. Clemens has what feels like a working class and old person's kind of downtown. Which isn't necessarily problem, except for the fact that the downtown appears to be struggling to attract enough people on a regular basis. I realize that Royal Oak and et. al. are far from cultural meccas, but they at least maintain a thin veneer of culture. I suspect a big part of the cultural problem is the crime in Mt. Clemens. While Mt. Clemens isn't as bad as Detroit, it's noticeably worse than cities like Ferndale, and that probably discourages many of the more affluent Metro Detroiters from visiting.

So what do you guys think? Is there a way to turn Mt. Clemens into downtown hub equal to Royal Oak? Or is it stuck with what it is? I feel like Mt. Clemens has a lot of unfulfilled promise. It has a rich history and lots of warm, friendly people. I went bar hopping one night in Mt. Clemens and was overwhelmed with how nice everyone was, including the waitstaff. You don't get that impression in Oakland County's downtowns, where people tend to be a bit uppity. Then again, would making Mt. Clemens a more cultural place ruin that vibe?

And for the record - no, I don't live in Mt. Clemens, but I do live in Macomb.

[p69rrh51]

For a little historic perspective a few of the hotels catering to the bathhouses. Plus one bathhouse.


Colonial Hotel, 1895.

Fountain House, 1895.

Egnew Hotel, 1895.

Hotel Egnew and bath house, 1895.

Medea Bath House, 1895.

Park Hotel, 1895.

[Gistok]

Nain Rouge, you bring up some very good questions.

As a county seat, Mt. Clemens seems perfect. When you compare the county government of Macomb to Oakland, where it's sprawled out in a large campus near a large dying mall... Mt. Clemens has its' county government compactly situated in the heart of the city. Also nearby is the shopping mecca of Hall Road. And also nearby are some of the priciest neighborhoods in the county... namely to the east along the Clinton River, mile after mile of affluent riverfront residences.... and to the southwest... mile after mile of affluence in the "Italian" enclaves of Moravian and Millar Roads. [[I say Italian, because of all the visible statuary and even vineyards in some areas).

Maybe forumer Krawlspace [[who is affiliated with the Emerald Theatre in downtown Mt. Clemens) can shed some light on this subject.

But I wonder if the nearby M-59 Hall Road corridor has sucked all the life out of Mt. Clemens?

[Hermod]

[[I say Italian, because of all the visible statuary and even vineyards in some areas).

Question: What do two flamingos do when they get married?

Answer: They buy a pair of cast iron Italians to put on their front lawn.

[Goose]

I completly agree with the OP, at time when Ive been there, its always been a good time, but always underwhelmed by the amount of people on the streets....

[nain rouge]

But I wonder if the nearby M-59 Hall Road corridor has sucked all the life out of Mt. Clemens?

I've wondered that, too. The "fake" downtown of Partridge Creek on 20 Mile is doing great, for example. It has all the brand name shops and restaurants people north of 20 Mile in both Macomb and Oakland worship [[North Face is one of their current gods, right?), and it's a very short drive away from a bunch of bars. Considering that most that choose to live out there are very comfortable with the automobile lifestyle, I could see how all the development on 20 Mile could be a drain, and Mt. Clemens itself doesn't have a big enough population to support that kind of downtown.

[poobert]

I've wondered that, too. The "fake" downtown of Partridge Creek on 20 Mile is doing great, for example. It has all the brand name shops and restaurants people north of 20 Mile in both Macomb and Oakland worship [[North Face is one of their current gods, right?), and it's a very short drive away from a bunch of bars. Considering that most that choose to live out there are very comfortable with the automobile lifestyle, I could see how all the development on 20 Mile could be a drain, and Mt. Clemens itself doesn't have a big enough population to support that kind of downtown.[/COLOR]

The car dependence is all-consuming in Macomb. Also places like Rochester, Royal Oak, Ferndale, and the Pointes are successful in part because it is fashionable among fashionable people to go hang out in cutesy downtowns, and, to be blunt, Macomb County isn't chalk overflowing with fashionable people. Hall Road and cheesy fake downtown malls are just awesome for them, as we can all readily see by their success.

It really is too bad. There was a lot of potential for Mt. Clemens. It could have really been an alternative to the bland yuppie dirge of Ferndale and Royal Oak - probably not a lot unlike the old blue collar Detroit commercial streets.

Nice collection of churches, too. Has a very American small-town feel to it.

[Gistok]

...and, to be blunt, Macomb County isn't chalk overflowing with fashionable people.

Kinda makes you wonder what all them there knuckle draggers are doing in a place like Nordsrtom's or Parisian, don't it? Maybe they're getting gussied up for the next WWF Smackdown...

<Sarcasm alert off>

[Hermod]

Utica, Romeo, and New Baltimore also were nice little towns in Macomb County.


For a bar with the "feel" of the old time Detroit bars, I could recommend the Waldenburg Bar on Romeo Plank and 22 Mile. It still has that ambiance of the blue collar neighborhood place with 3rd & 4th generation sons of immigrants.

[canuck]

With the technology to free us from hard labor, we also have intently discarded some of the most valuable treasures and replaced them with blahness. The repetition across the continent is unbearably persistent, and it seem like even majestic trees have a dedicated purpose and place in these redundant landscapes. It is not about to stop soon.

[313WX]

Macomb County, as we know, is the king of sprawl and home of the legendary Hall Road. People like to rag on Oakland County, but at least it has downtown Ferndale, Royal Oak, Birmingham, and Rochester - yes, even something like downtown Rochester would seem like a big deal in Macomb.

I can explain that one.

Oakland County is all in your face with its sprawl [[how about great it is for the county and how they love it), Macomb County is not.

People hate people who brag, especially when they don't know what they're even bragging about.

Also, Macomb county, at least the southern half, is far more developed infrastructurally than Oakland County. In majority of Oakland County, if it weren't for all the god awful traffic, it would seem as if you were in the middle of nowhere with all the wood-esque areas

[JBMcB]

I love all the holier-than-thou culture warrior posts on this thread - as though there is some ideal "culture" that all cities simply *must* adopt.

Please, keep pontificating, at the very least for the humor value.

[Wheels]

I love all the holier-than-thou culture warrior posts on this thread - as though there is some ideal "culture" that all cities simply *must* adopt.

Please, keep pontificating, at the very least for the humor value.

How true!

Do you think they even realize they profess a lifestyle only a very small percentage of the country live? Then add in the fact that a large portion of them dream of a better life away from the rat race of city life!

It gets very humorous to listen to some of the ridiculous arguments like density and street walls though. If only we could ban cars and parking lots all would be better.

[canuck]

I love all the holier-than-thou culture warrior posts on this thread - as though there is some ideal "culture" that all cities simply *must* adopt.

Please, keep pontificating, at the very least for the humor value.

Well the point of this forum is to debate these points, not ignore the environment we are focussing on. It may be funny to both of us for different reasons but it all needs to be debated so that we can make informed decisions. Sprawl is a definite problem we all need to address, urban density takes many forms and we can find ways to make cities more interesting by avoiding the mistakes of the recent 60+ years.

[Shollin]

I love all the holier-than-thou culture warrior posts on this thread - as though there is some ideal "culture" that all cities simply *must* adopt.

Please, keep pontificating, at the very least for the humor value.

I have to agree. I always read how shopping at box stores and eating at chain restaurants is not "cultured", but cultured is going to Royal Oak, a city that's 90% white, and eating at over priced restaurants. I love Hall Road. All the shopping I need is there and there is a Golden Corral and I can stuff my face until my shirt buttons pop off for $10.

[poobert]

I have to agree. I always read how shopping at box stores and eating at chain restaurants is not "cultured", but cultured is going to Royal Oak, a city that's 90% white, and eating at over priced restaurants. I love Hall Road. All the shopping I need is there and there is a Golden Corral and I can stuff my face until my shirt buttons pop off for $10.

It's funny how I catch so much hell for pointing out this sort of thing which is all too ubiquitous in Macomb County and then Bubba Spraycheese comes along to reinforce those all-too-well-earned stereotypes.

I'm glad that folks are content with their belt-busting, big box lifestyle but what is upsetting is that the same folks don't understand that that just doesn't appeal to everyone and that since there aren't meaningful alternatives around here those folks will go elsewhere. Call me a snob, but I'm not staying here, as I've said before. All my snob friends are gone too, with their college degrees.

God help us when Macomb goes to the polls to vote on the DIA.

[Shollin]

It's funny how I catch so much hell for pointing out this sort of thing which is all too ubiquitous in Macomb County and then Bubba Spraycheese comes along to reinforce those all-too-well-earned stereotypes.

I'm glad that folks are content with their belt-busting, big box lifestyle but what is upsetting is that the same folks don't understand that that just doesn't appeal to everyone and that since there aren't meaningful alternatives around here those folks will go elsewhere. Call me a snob, but I'm not staying here, as I've said before. All my snob friends are gone too, with their college degrees.

God help us when Macomb goes to the polls to vote on the DIA.

I love the irony here. Wasn't Troy that rejecting federal funding for a public transportation center? Wasn't it Troy who rejected funding for their library? You're worried Macomb county will not vote for the DIA but Troy will?

The irony continues when you berate and insult me and then go on to mention that I don't understand what appeals to everyone when you yourself don't understand what appeals to some. The problem with Oakland county is this "culture" is so forced and phony. Ferndale was a down and out city and they throw some bars and condos on 9 Mile and it's all of the sudden cultured again. Move those bars and condos on 9 mile to Van Dyke and Warren is suddenly hip and cultured.

[Gistok]

I love the irony here. Wasn't Troy that rejecting federal funding for a public transportation center? Wasn't it Troy who rejected funding for their library? You're worried Macomb county will not vote for the DIA but Troy will?

The irony continues when you berate and insult me and then go on to mention that I don't understand what appeals to everyone when you yourself don't understand what appeals to some. The problem with Oakland county is this "culture" is so forced and phony. Ferndale was a down and out city and they throw some bars and condos on 9 Mile and it's all of the sudden cultured again. Move those bars and condos on 9 mile to Van Dyke and Warren is suddenly hip and cultured.

Welcome to the forum Shollin.... and take everything he says with a grain of salt... he insults everyone from Livonia to Macomb County and everywhere in between. Funny how he questions why he catches hell, and then in the same sentence fully explains why. Just look at it this way... being a member on this forum requires no IQ testing...

[poobert]

Move those bars and condos on 9 mile to Van Dyke and Warren is suddenly hip and cultured.

Uh...probably not.

What's all this about culture, anyway? Nobody is talking about culture except you. How many burritos do you have to eat until your shirt buttons fly off to experience Mexican culture? Walkability and cultural institutions and not synonymous, though they often go hand-in-hand.

I'm also no fan of OC for the most part, but tons of young people are flocking to Ferndale, which, as you correctly pointed out, used to be way shitty, so they must be on to something...yes?

I rarely go there but they have an outstanding little theatre and tons of art galleries. Again, maybe all that stuff isn't for you but clearly it is good for the city and the region.

Don't act all indignant. Your argument against walkable downtowns was that you love to go to the Golden Corral on Hall Road to eat till you burst. You left that one wide open. Welcome to the forum, though.

[kraig]

I have to agree. I always read how shopping at box stores and eating at chain restaurants is not "cultured", but cultured is going to Royal Oak, a city that's 90% white, and eating at over priced restaurants. I love Hall Road. All the shopping I need is there and there is a Golden Corral and I can stuff my face until my shirt buttons pop off for $10.

Personally, I love the culture of Ferndale. I like to go to Buffalo Wild Wings and Rosie O' Grady's. They're both so unique and there's nothing like them anywhere else.

[Hermod]

Like it or not, Hall Road is the retail "downtown" of the Detroit metro area.

Of course when Poobert & Nerds Department Store opens in downtown Detroit in all of its seventy-five story glory with the Magic Choo-choo Station integrated into the ground floor, people will abandon Hall Road in droves and it will become a ghost town.

Start saving the money for your investment, boys.

[Detroitnerd]

If walkable places give some people the creeps, its partially because it confounds expectations. Typical suburbanites recoil because a place sized down to human scale is not what they think of as developed. They find the variety of modes and people confusing, intimidating, maddening. Why are all the buildings so close together? Where do we park? Why are people walking and biking as well as driving? Why are the streets lined with buildings filled with thin, young, attractive people? Where are the fast food joints, the self-service gas stations? Literally and metaphorically, these suburbanites get lost.

[mwilbert]

Do you think they even realize they profess a lifestyle only a very small percentage of the country live? Then add in the fact that a large portion of them dream of a better life away from the rat race of city life!

It gets very humorous to listen to some of the ridiculous arguments like density and street walls though. If only we could ban cars and parking lots all would be better.

There are different arguments here that you seem not to be distinguishing. I don't see anyone saying that we would be better off without cars or parking lots. I do see people saying that city centers would be better off without surface lots, but that isn't really the same thing.

Also, there is a difference between thinking that we need more dense urban areas in Metro Detroit and saying that everyone wants to live in those places. Survey data says most people do not want to live in walkable urban areas, but maybe somewhere around 30% do. That may be different in metro Detroit, but only a very small percentage of the region has walkable urban density, so very likely there is unmet demand. Streetwalls are simply part of what you need to make an area walkable. There isn't anything ridiculous about it.

The main reason as few people live in dense walkable areas nationally as do is that there aren't enough of them. Zoning rules pretty much prevent the creation of new walkable areas, so we mostly only have ones that existed before the Depression, and people don't necessarily live where they want to, but where they can. A lot of people might like to live on Beacon Hill or Russian Hill or SoHo, but there is limited space, the prices get bid up, and they can't afford to. Certainly many of the most expensive neighborhoods in the country are walkable urban, so someone wants to live there.

[Wesley Mouch]

Mt. Clemens seems on a pretty good track to me. Yes, it would be nice to see it grow into something even better -- but I'm not unhappy with what we have.

I think the major reason is... Much to the distress of anti-freeway forum friends no doubt.... RO has benefited greatly from being near the confluence of two great freeways -- I75 and I696. People from most of the metro area can all find it easy to get to RO. Mt. Clemens is well-situated with 94, Gratiot, and 59, but it is on the edge -- not the center of the region.

So Mt. Clemens just has to wait for the next round of post-financial-market-sprawl.

[professorscott]

Here's one big difference between Mt. Clemens and the Oakland County communities mentioned earlier in the thread: Most of those Oakland County communities, save Birmingham, you drive through downtown on the main roads: Ferndale you have Woodward and 9 Mile, both of which go through downtown; Royal Oak is bypassed by Woodward but Main and 11 Mile both go through downtown; Birmingham is slightly bypassed by Woodward but 15 Mile goes through downtown.

M-3 goes around downtown Mt. Clemens, not through it, and there is no major traffic generating east-west road. M-59 is a couple miles north of Mt. Clemens and in fact never enters the city at all. So most of the people driving near Mt. Clemens never even see the downtown.

M-59 has taken the retail thunder away from every community in south and central Macomb County. It is an absolute economic disaster, and it is also partly to blame for Mt. Clemens' difficulties. But I think mostly the "hidden" downtown is to blame.