Closing in Royal Oak, moving to Midtown

[bassab]

Tipping point?

“Everybody’s kind of saying the same thing where we’re tired of struggling,” said Paris’ owner Katrina Bray, who plans to close her shop next weekend and relocate to Detroit’s trendy Midtown area next year. “We are moving to Midtown because that just seems to be where all the young people are going.”

http://www.freep.com/article/2014081...-Oak-vacancies

[SpartanDawg]

just came to post this... bham?? anyone else detracting detroit? would love to hear their comments..

the actual business owners now realize what's going on... people want REAL urban living. not this bs ticky tacky royal oak stuff.. Detroit moving forward...

[Danny]

Detroit is where the action is. The second white flight from the suburbs to Detroit has begun. While the black lower and middle class flight from Detroit to the suburbs increase. Young professionals want inner city urban living, not suburban "Keeping up with the Joneses" living. Downtown Royal Oak might get some businesses back only to local franchise restaurants that will die out in couple years. Midtown Detroit and Giberttown will see and explosion of exotic stores.

During the past 2 years after Dan Gilbert brought in up to 20,000 jobs to Downtown Detroit and buying up every last building that he could utilize, pop up stores, yuppie apts. and super condos and even DIME music college will bring the spark back in once "Arsenal of Democracy" city. Detroit just don't make cars anymore, Automation Alley is dead! It's the hi-tech, social network engineering green jobs. That's what Americans wants. It's the wave of future.

[animatedmartian]

just came to post this... bham?? anyone else detracting detroit? would love to hear their comments..

the actual business owners now realize what's going on... people want REAL urban living. not this bs ticky tacky royal oak stuff.. Detroit moving forward...

The article was mostly about how there's too many bars and restaurants driving up rents forcing the other businesses out. The main problem is that Royal Oak's downtown is too small and when rents rise there's really nowhere else for businesses to go except for outside of Royal Oak.

The positive part for Detroit is that there's multiple neighborhoods where businesses can grow. If they get priced out of one area they can just move a couple of blocks down the street for cheaper rent. Still, that doesn't mean what's currently happening in Royal Oak couldn't happen in Detroit. It's just unlikely because the room for growth is a lot bigger.

[Honky Tonk]

Good post, and I agree. But you forgot to add "too many art galleries" to your list.

[Kathleen]

I sure hope that Paris can make it in Midtown, but I thought her prices were a bit high for Royal Oak. She may have to adjust her prices to what young people can afford. But if her rent is lower, then maybe more affordable prices will prevail.

It is getting hard to find vintage clothing at reasonable prices. Vintage Vogue charges way too much...but since they seem to cater to the film industry and not the locals, they are charging more. Regenerations' inventory is more retro than vintage. But I've seen a couple new vintage clothing places popping up, so maybe we won't have to drive to Midtown to Paris, although I am encouraged to see more retail shopping establishments there....it might just turn into a real shopping destination!!

[248lurker]

Royal Oak has been obsessed with bars for a while. Small businesses have been dying off in the downtown over the past 20+ years as the city seemingly puts a restaurant on every block. At one point [[I'm not sure if it's still true), they city had more liquor licenses than its quota because the City Commission approved each and every transfer of a license from another city.

A recent article in the Daily Tribune mentioned that BWW will be paying $22,500 in monthly rent once they relocate. A number of small business can't handle that kind of expense.

At least this particular shopkeeper is willing to try Midtown as opposed to just going belly up. I hope the relocation works for her.

[Cliffy]

They will have to lower rents unless they want empty storefronts for years.

[Bham1982]

just came to post this... bham?? anyone else detracting detroit? would love to hear their comments..

the actual business owners now realize what's going on... people want REAL urban living. not this bs ticky tacky royal oak stuff.. Detroit moving forward...

You can cling to anecdotes all you want; there are always people and businesses moving from one jurisdiction to the other.

The fact is there's no evidence whatsoever there's any sort of movement back to Detroit. DYes would be the worst possble place to ever consider the issue, as every tiniest thing is posted remotely pro Detroit, while nothing is posted going anywhere but Detroit.

If a 8-seat restaurant opens in Midtown, it gets a thread and 200 posts. If a million square foot retail expansion happens or 1,000 500k homes go up in the suburbs [[stuff that happens all the time), it will get no mention, except perhaps as an example of "poor planning".

So, in short, you believe in a reviltalization because you want to believe in a revitalization, and anecdotes like this support your worldview, even if all the reliable indicators [[Census derived population, tax base, employment, and the like) show the opposite. There are more high-end homes built /sold in exurban townships of 10,000 than in the entire city of Detroit most years.

Case in point- where my brother bought a home, there are probably something like 5,000 homes going up within a few square miles, almost none below 400k. In contrast, in Detroit, there isn't a single major for-sale development anywhere in the city. The Book Cadillac, a small development, still hasn't sold despite price cuts, subsidies and 10 years of hard sell. The market isn't there, at least not yet. The population has never been lower, the schools have never been worse, the streets have never been emptier. The black professional class, the last bedrock in the city, is mostly gone, and in West Bloomfield/Novi.

And Midtown isn't really much more urban than Royal Oak. Midtown has very spotty'limited urbanity. Anyone who wants hard-core urbanity isn't going to live anywhere in Michigan. Excepting maybe Chicago [[and even they have issues) the Midwest kind of sucks for intense, transit-oriented urbanity.

But because there are a few thousand white people from Macomb Twp living downtown/midtown in their 20's, you think the city has turned around. Not happening, at least not yet.

[rex]

no reason both cant thrive. Royal Oak is convenient to lots of people.

[poobert]

If a 8-seat restaurant opens in Midtown, it gets a thread and 200 posts.

175 of which were written by Bham1982, minimalizing the restaurant's quality, economic effect, neighborhood, clientele, menu, and Detroit in general.

I'm sure look back on his deathbed and say, "boy, I sure am glad I spent countless hours and thousands of posts raining on everyone's parade on DetroitYes"

[JBMcB]

no reason both cant thrive. Royal Oak is convenient to lots of people.

No, on DetroitYes, it's a zero-sum game. We don't want economic expansion and stores and neighborhoods to be successful everywhere. We want the suburbs destroyed and everyone forced to move back to Detroit. It's the only way the region can move forward, and by the region we mean Detroit. There are no alternative outcomes.

As any successful community can attest to, the path to community improvement is paved with with finger pointing, blame and suspicion. You won't do better unless someone else suffers.

[nain rouge]

Royal Oak is for fratboys and sorority girls in their early 30s and middle-aged people in Somerset duds trying to be hip. And it will remain successful because of that demographic. Everyone else has moved on.

[Lowell]

no reason both cant thrive. Royal Oak is convenient to lots of people.

Agree. The rising rents in RO are sign of that district's success as much as the attraction of the Cass Corridor [still hate the name midtown ] marks its success.

I like both venues and am happy to see both succeed. We're all Detroit when viewed from satellites. It is not a zero sum game and those who think so are in the minority.

[Kathleen]

Royal Oak is for fratboys and sorority girls in their early 30s and middle-aged people in Somerset duds trying to be hip. And it will remain successful because of that demographic. Everyone else has moved on.

We've lived in Royal Oak for 30+ years, moving here before it developed into a community with a destination downtown. As young marrieds, it was a place we could afford, with neighborhoods that reminded me of my eastside Detroit neighborhood. It was centrally located, and it had a walkable downtown and some engaging retail with nice amenities.

Through the years, we've seen enormous changes...new buildings, both commercial and residential...such a variety of restaurants...new movie theatre. But the small town appeal that Royal Oak once held is disappearing.

I enjoy going to downtown Royal Oak every so often to patronize the restaurants and to attend events and to use the library and to go to the Farmers Market. I would love to shop in downtown Royal Oak more frequently, but the stores keep moving out. Still I do enjoy walking around Royal Oak on a warm summer evening when the place is hopping!!

Wish they could find a balance between the independent retail establishments--the quaint and the quirky--and the restaurants.

[rb336]

I sure hope that Paris can make it in Midtown, but I thought her prices were a bit high for Royal Oak. She may have to adjust her prices to what young people can afford. But if her rent is lower, then maybe more affordable prices will prevail.

If her prices were "too high for Royal Oak," how will any business be able to stay in RO with the constant jacking up of the rents?

[Kathleen]

If her prices were "too high for Royal Oak," how will any business be able to stay in RO with the constant jacking up of the rents?

Good question. The Royal Oak City Commission has to stop giving approval to every restaurant and bar that applies...because every landlord seems to think that their property is worth so much more and might be a candidate for a new restaurant or bar and so charges small business owners so much that they can't afford to stay there.

[Honky Tonk]

Good question. The Royal Oak City Commission has to stop giving approval to every restaurant and bar that applies...because every landlord seems to think that their property is worth so much more and might be a candidate for a new restaurant or bar and so charges small business owners so much that they can't afford to stay there.

Like housing in Midtown.

[mwilbert]

Royal Oak has been on this path for a long time, as Kathleen says. The normal neighborhood businesses get priced out [[I remember when there was a hardware store), and the business mix shifts toward what can pay the highest rents, which in Royal Oak is bars and restaurants. Combine that with a tough environment for retail and you end up with what you see in Royal Oak--the big question is how long it takes to refill those storefronts, presumably with restaurants. The town becomes less attractive overall, because people generally prefer places where there is a mix of retail uses, but that isn't something that a market with a lot of individual landlords handles well, which is why God created malls.

[jonesy]

Downtown Royal Oak is a contrived urban experience that was bound to unravel if Detroit got its act together. I always laugh when cable house hunting/home remodeling shows referred Royal Oak as a "Detroit neighborhood".

[Danny]

I looked at Google Maps on Royal Oak's Main St. from 11 Mile Rd to the Rail Road tracks and I see more restaurants than retail. The retail base in Downtown Royal Oak is slowly dying. Taking over by exotic restaurants. That's way too much!

[TTime]

Downtown Royal Oak is a contrived urban experience that was bound to unravel if Detroit got its act together. I always laugh when cable house hunting/home remodeling shows referred Royal Oak as a "Detroit neighborhood".

I find it interesting that you call Royal Oak a contrived urban experience. The new version of Downtown Detroit is arguably as contrived as "urban" experiences come.

[renf]

There may be some increase in employment in downtown Detroit attributable, in part, to
the activities of Dan Gilbert. I would like to see some confirmation that the net gain in
downtown jobs in the recent past is 20,000. That seems implausibly large to me. Governmental employment appears to be declining.

[bailey]

Downtown Royal Oak is a contrived urban experience that was bound to unravel if Detroit got its act together. I always laugh when cable house hunting/home remodeling shows referred Royal Oak as a "Detroit neighborhood".

The entire point of the article is that rent is so high there that some small retailers have to move. and they also cite to NATIONAL retailers Peets and B&N that either went out of business entirely, or are shedding massive amounts of stores. I really am struggling to understand how royal oak is "unraveling"... contrived urban environment notwithstanding.

Its nice to see some retailers taking a chance on midtown, but...again, but for the high rent in RO not one of them would be moving.

[Wesley Mouch]

They will have to lower rents unless they want empty storefronts for years.

This is called 'the market'. It corrects and adjusts. Nice to see her favoring Detroit, at least at the moment.