 
Danindc
Member
Username: Danindc
Post Number: 2921
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 31, 2007 - 1:35 pm: |    |
quote:They are reacting to the reality of the situation. The kind of mixed use development many of us would prefer to see on that site only makes sense in a functioning urban environment, which southeast Oakland County is not.
It's a reality that is created by propagation of projects like this P.O.S. The reality isn't going to change, and the functioning urban environment won't exist, unless you actually build in an urban style.
You don't need a transit system on par with the NYC subway to build mixed-use and urban. Look at places like Georgetown and Ann Arbor for crying out loud. Permitting this uninspired crap to go forward only excuses and maintains the status quo. |
Rb336
Member
Username: Rb336
Post Number: 939
Registered: 02-2007
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 31, 2007 - 1:42 pm: | |
The design is cookie-cutter LA Fitness standard. |
Kpm
Member
Username: Kpm
Post Number: 57
Registered: 08-2005
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 31, 2007 - 1:46 pm: | |
I, too, hope that isn't the current plan.
From the City of Royal Oak website (last updated April 2007):
The Development Agreement between the City of Royal Oak, Downtown Development Authority (DDA) and the Schostak Brothers & Company was originally executed on October 17, 2001 and received an extension through July 31, 2003. On July 31, 2003, the developer, Mr. David Schostak, decided to proceed with the terms of the agreement and purchase the property. The DDA received payment of $4,000,000 on October 1, 2003. The development agreement allows for 177,000 square feet of office space, 86,000 square feet for a hotel use, and a parking structure to service both uses with a total of 678 parking spaces. Schostak Brothers & Company has not submitted formal site plans for review and approval. However, the developer has made the required compensatory payments as set forth in the development agreement.
http://www.ci.royal-oak.mi.us/ mp/citywide/index_files/frame. htm
The rendering on that link (though difficult to see clearly) is much more dense that what was illustrated in the first post.
It would be nice if someone "in the know" could inform us which of these (if either) is currently being considered... |
Chris_rohn
Member
Username: Chris_rohn
Post Number: 304
Registered: 04-2005
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 31, 2007 - 1:48 pm: | |
Professorscott said, "all of the buildings you mention on Main Street were built in the very distant past."
Two examples of "mixed use" developments built in Royal Oak within the last few years:
|
Fareastsider
Member
Username: Fareastsider
Post Number: 505
Registered: 08-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 31, 2007 - 1:50 pm: | |
The designs for the Wonderland site are nasty....why does every shopping center look the exact same? |
Mercman
Member
Username: Mercman
Post Number: 43
Registered: 10-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 31, 2007 - 1:52 pm: | |
Does anyone know what used to be at that location, before it became a vast expanse of indecision? I thought I read once there was a car dealer or something there. |
Paulmcall
Member
Username: Paulmcall
Post Number: 300
Registered: 05-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 31, 2007 - 1:57 pm: | |
You can hardly recognize Royal Oak with all the gross buildings going up. At least someone is willing to spend money there.
Guess it's a sign of "progress".
That plot of land on Woodward used to have a car dealer on it. Hate to say it but "them were the good old days". |
Professorscott
Member
Username: Professorscott
Post Number: 578
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 31, 2007 - 2:59 pm: | |
Ann Arbor? Ann Arbor has much better public transit than the Royal Oak area. From the Schostak location, just for instance, there are only buses running north/south, and none east-west.
In Ann Arbor, every main street has bus service, whereas in the Royal Oak area, parts of Coolidge and Crooks and all of Rochester Road have no bus service at all, 10 Mile Rd has no bus service between Scotia and John R, 12 Mile has no bus service between Coolidge and Campbell, none of the half mile roads have bus service at all. And where there is bus service, with very few exceptions (notably the 450) it comes infrequently and doesn't run late at night.
Put simply: It is possible, and not too difficult, to get around the Ann Arbor area by transit; it is barely possible and quite a pain to try the same thing with the Royal Oak area.
If everybody has to drive to get everywhere, then for the most part developments will be car-oriented rather than people-oriented. |
Oldredfordette
Member
Username: Oldredfordette
Post Number: 2352
Registered: 02-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 31, 2007 - 3:04 pm: | |
Remember the Royal Oak free trolley? Nobody took it. We have years of car culture to overcome.
Ann Arbor is full of students who, for part of the time, are not allowed cars. So they use buses and bikes and their own *gasp* legs to travel with.
Unheard of! |
Udmphikapbob
Member
Username: Udmphikapbob
Post Number: 401
Registered: 07-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 31, 2007 - 3:10 pm: | |
looks great - just like the "pedestrian village" at Wonderland in my backyard! we're getting an LA Fitness there too. can't wait to drive the 1/2 mile to get there, and hope for a good parking spot so i can get to the treadmill faster... |
Professorscott
Member
Username: Professorscott
Post Number: 579
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 31, 2007 - 3:29 pm: | |
Old, I don't remember the RO trolley (and I lived in RO for a time). Where did it go? When did it operate?
Most of those downtown trolleys that proliferated for a while in the 1970s and 1980s were not popular because they did not connect people's homes to the downtown, but just ferried people around downtown (which turned out to be not much of a service at all). If I already have to drive to RO and park, I'm just going to walk the short hops and drive the longer ones; there's no need for a trolley shuttle. If on the other hand I could get to downtown RO without a car, then I might use such a thing for medium-length trips.
Port Huron still has (or had last year) a summertime downtown trolley, not free but only ten cents, and it's not very popular for the same reason. It wasn't built to serve any real transportation need, so it doesn't. It's one of those chamber-of-commerce ideas that sounds good when you talk about it at the meeting at the Knights of Columbus hall, but doesn't really work in practice. |
Wilus1mj
Member
Username: Wilus1mj
Post Number: 209
Registered: 05-2005
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 31, 2007 - 3:40 pm: | |
Big disappointment for that site...I would have liked to have seen a boutique hotel/park.
(Message edited by wilus1mj on July 31, 2007) |
Amy_p
Member
Username: Amy_p
Post Number: 806
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 31, 2007 - 3:49 pm: | |
Gross. I'm sure an Outback will end up in the parking lot.
(Mercman: It was Jim Fresard or Matthews Heargraves or something--I grew up on California St., which is now buried behind condos, back when this area was the crappy part of R.O. and I could ride my 3-speed across two-lane 10 Mile into Pleasant Ridge and grab an Amy Joy donut. Okay, this sounds like a jjaba post; better end it before I start speaking in 3rd person. ;P) |
Bussey
Member
Username: Bussey
Post Number: 553
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 31, 2007 - 4:24 pm: | |
^^^LOL |
Chris_rohn
Member
Username: Chris_rohn
Post Number: 306
Registered: 04-2005
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 31, 2007 - 4:24 pm: | |
|
Johnlodge
Member
Username: Johnlodge
Post Number: 1441
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 31, 2007 - 4:25 pm: | |
Good job Chris. |
Burnsie
Member
Username: Burnsie
Post Number: 1105
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 31, 2007 - 4:26 pm: | |
It's amazing that with its great location, that plot of land has been empty for some 20 years.
The car dealer was definitely Matthews Hargreaves. For a number of years after I-696 came through, a sign advertised their replacement location. |
Chris_rohn
Member
Username: Chris_rohn
Post Number: 307
Registered: 04-2005
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 31, 2007 - 4:27 pm: | |
Credit goes to Subaru for having a 360deg model of an Outback on their web page.
That's an "L.L. Bean Edition" Outback for added effect. |
Johnlodge
Member
Username: Johnlodge
Post Number: 1442
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 31, 2007 - 4:32 pm: | |
Bad news, I'm afraid. Site plans just updated:
|
Iheartthed
Member
Username: Iheartthed
Post Number: 1250
Registered: 04-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 31, 2007 - 4:33 pm: | |
^LOL! |
Amy_p
Member
Username: Amy_p
Post Number: 807
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 31, 2007 - 4:33 pm: | |
Well, at least now the business suits and lack of gymbags make sense ... |
Rampartstreetnorth
Member
Username: Rampartstreetnorth
Post Number: 62
Registered: 07-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 31, 2007 - 4:54 pm: | |
Word of the proposal has leaked out, and as I type these words outraged Royal Oakers are gathering at the site to express their outrage!!!
|
Mackinaw
Member
Username: Mackinaw
Post Number: 3426
Registered: 02-2005
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 31, 2007 - 5:44 pm: | |
That design is just plain cheesy.
Reminds me of the new "Bank of Ann Arbor" at Stadium and Liberty outside Ann Arbor, with a really stupid, just-for-decoration roofline.
Sounds like this is a big letdown for that site. |
Gistok
Member
Username: Gistok
Post Number: 5000
Registered: 08-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 31, 2007 - 11:25 pm: | |
Actually that corner pavilion looks like the torn down Fountain Walk in Novi, but without the Statue-of-Liberty spiky headgear along the roofline!  |
Novine
Member
Username: Novine
Post Number: 14
Registered: 07-2007
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 31, 2007 - 11:59 pm: | |
UFO landing pads? They're all over.
Novi:
http://www.stocorp.com/webfile s.nsf/htmlmedia/fountainwalk.j pg/$file/fountainwalk.jpg
Kalamazoo:
http://www.agm-michigan.com/bu ildings/Kzoo-Radisson2.jpg |
Fareastsider
Member
Username: Fareastsider
Post Number: 506
Registered: 08-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 01, 2007 - 12:08 am: | |
The best change to expect for the siteplan from what Ive seen around the area is a CVS on the corner! |
Classico
Member
Username: Classico
Post Number: 41
Registered: 12-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 01, 2007 - 12:30 am: | |
Might as well leave that corner empty if they're going to put that pile of crap up. I actually thought Royal Oak was the one community here you could expect quality developments. Oh well. |
Professorscott
Member
Username: Professorscott
Post Number: 582
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 01, 2007 - 1:20 am: | |
You can't force people to build what you'd like, though. Developers will build what's economical. Within that constraint, communities can direct what is done, but if you restrict development to things that aren't economically practical then nothing at all will be built.
One thing concerns me: why the acres of parking? Does Royal Oak require this? If so, and if Royal Oak is supposed to be progressive, why? |
Fishtoes2000
Member
Username: Fishtoes2000
Post Number: 260
Registered: 06-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 01, 2007 - 9:03 am: | |
You can require developers to build what you want when you originally own the land. This is from an April 2007 planning presentation.
quote:The Development Agreement between the City of Royal Oak, Downtown Development Authority (DDA) and the Schostak Brothers Company was originally executed on October 17, 2001 and received an extension through July 31, 2003. On July 31, 2003, the developer, Mr. David Schostak, decided to proceed with the terms of the agreement and purchase the property. The DDA received payment of $4,000,000 on October 1, 2003.
The development agreement allows for 177,000 square feet of office space, 86,000 square feet for a hotel use, and a parking structure to service both uses with a total of 678 parking spaces.
Schostak Brothers Company has not submitted formal site plans for review and approval. However, the developer has made the required compensatory payments as set forth in the development agreement.
Currently Schostak pays Royal Oak $160K every year the land sits vacant. |
Crew
Member
Username: Crew
Post Number: 1339
Registered: 02-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 01, 2007 - 10:22 am: | |
Schostak was going to build a new Pontiac/Buick/GMC dealership for Jim Fresard there with an "urban" feel. Basically a car dealer in a parking garage with no outdoor lots. The development would have been too expensive though so they are building a new, more traditional dealership on Woodward in Ferndale. |
Danindc
Member
Username: Danindc
Post Number: 2932
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 01, 2007 - 12:04 pm: | |
Owners only build what the zoning regulations allow, folks! |
Johnlodge
Member
Username: Johnlodge
Post Number: 1445
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 01, 2007 - 12:08 pm: | |
The funny thing is, the sign up at the site still shows the multi-story mixed use development plan.
Last I noticed anyway. |
Professorscott
Member
Username: Professorscott
Post Number: 586
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 01, 2007 - 12:57 pm: | |
And to flip over what Dan has just said, owners can build anything that the zoning regulations allow. If your community wants to ensure dense, mixed-use development, it is not enough to allow it; you have to require it. |
Chris_rohn
Member
Username: Chris_rohn
Post Number: 313
Registered: 04-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 08, 2007 - 12:02 pm: | |
Royal Oak should, at a minimum, throw up a red flag and ask why there's such a downgrade in the project.
If its within zoning there's not much more they can do but cause a stink, but you'd think if Royal Oak really didn't like it they'd find a way to block it. |
Professorscott
Member
Username: Professorscott
Post Number: 600
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 08, 2007 - 12:21 pm: | |
It it meets zoning requirements there really is no way to block it. If the zoning ordinance is out of date, you can work on updating it; but in the meantime you must allow any project that conforms to the existing regulations. |
Danindc
Member
Username: Danindc
Post Number: 2977
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 08, 2007 - 1:32 pm: | |
This is why "modern" zoning codes, in use since WWII, are bunk. Instead of prescribing uses, we need to return to form-based zoning codes that existed before the Depression. Otherwise, we'll continue to get stuck with schlock like this. |
Mackinaw
Member
Username: Mackinaw
Post Number: 3523
Registered: 02-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 08, 2007 - 2:01 pm: | |
Amen.
Too many places-- and just about all newly developed areas-- ban mixed use developments, developments with little or no setback, developments over 3 stories, and developments without surface parking lots. Even "urban" places like Royal Oak have some messed up zoning codes outside of their traditional downtown.
Recently the city of Grosse Pointe decided to change course and solicit developers to build on the parking lots behind the existing row of retail on Kercheval. I don't believe they've chosen a developer yet, but 2 of the 3 plans-- the ones which were the most favored and well presented by the architects-- were 5-story multi-use buildings with little/no setback and vertical parking behind the buildings. I was amazed, in a good way, that those proposals were being embraced by the city manager. Hopefully that trend becomes more widespread in suburban Detroit. |
Danindc
Member
Username: Danindc
Post Number: 2978
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 08, 2007 - 2:09 pm: | |
^I hope so too!
People aren't stupid. They know what looks good, and what feels good to the human psyche. That's why older places like Boston and Georgetown are big-time tourist draws in themselves.
Unfortunately, most people don't understand WHY their neighborhoods look like they do. And they have even less of an idea of how to make their neighborhood into something resembling a cohesive "village". |
Mackinaw
Member
Username: Mackinaw
Post Number: 3525
Registered: 02-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 08, 2007 - 2:17 pm: | |
Or they relegate such fine qualities to the realm of places to "visit." People either don't aim high, or are afraid of the "hassles" of living someplace where parking might not always be free and available.
Most Americans are okay with well-planned, functional urban spaces being the realm of Williamsburg or Disneyworld. They certainly don't demand it for where they live, and clearly don't care either way how their local central city functions, as is evident with Detroit, with was allowed to decay from a prized urban realm to something that now needs to be largely rebuilt, if only the interest could be mustered in this area. |
Danindc
Member
Username: Danindc
Post Number: 2980
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 08, 2007 - 2:29 pm: | |
^The one thing that troubles me, as evidenced on this forum time and again, is that quality urban design is popularly associated with "money" and "high land value". Nothing could be further from the truth. Just because there happens to be a correlation (especially in East Coast cities and San Francisco), does not imply causation. In other words, you don't need to have a wealthy area in order to build urban, and settle for suburban schlock otherwise. If you've ever been to any number of small towns in upstate New York, especially the Finger Lakes area, you'll know this simply isn't true.
In my mind, building 3000 sf homes on minimum 1 acre lots, requiring a private car for each member of the family, and gallons upon gallons of gasoline to fuel it all--THAT is what is expensive! |
Novine
Member
Username: Novine
Post Number: 31
Registered: 07-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 08, 2007 - 2:51 pm: | |
"Too many places-- and just about all newly developed areas-- ban mixed use developments, developments with little or no setback, developments over 3 stories, and developments without surface parking lots. Even "urban" places like Royal Oak have some messed up zoning codes outside of their traditional downtown.
"
I don't know. In Novi, the zoning in the "Main Street area allows all of that but I don't see developers lining up to build there even with the existing demographics. There's a new project that's moving forward but look how long it's taken that area to even get half-finished. Developers are rarely leaders or innovators. Most would rather build a cookie-cutter strip mall than try something different (and this applies to the lenders too). |
Danindc
Member
Username: Danindc
Post Number: 2982
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 08, 2007 - 2:55 pm: | |
^Main Street in Novi is still a "pod". Like everything else in suburbia, it's segregated from everything else. It's not part of an integrated urban fabric as you would find in a traditional city. |
Focusonthed
Member
Username: Focusonthed
Post Number: 1226
Registered: 02-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 08, 2007 - 3:36 pm: | |
It's an outdoor mall lol. While it may look like a city within it's boundaries, you still get there by driving and parking in the lot out front. Unless you walked out on I-96 and then crossed Grand River. |
Professorscott
Member
Username: Professorscott
Post Number: 605
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 08, 2007 - 3:49 pm: | |
I think the problem is most of the professional planners who advise these communities remain married to the idea that everything should look like suburbia. Governments tend to do what their professional advisers tell them to do. Until we can change the hearts and minds of the professionals, we will keep seeing more of what we already have.
There are some in the business who have a more modern view of things, like Rod Arroyo, but there aren't very many. |
Danindc
Member
Username: Danindc
Post Number: 2986
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 08, 2007 - 3:51 pm: | |
quote:I think the problem is most of the professional planners who advise these communities remain married to the idea that everything should look like suburbia.
And that is the single biggest culture shock I have whenever I go back to the Midwest. |
Dannaroo
Member
Username: Dannaroo
Post Number: 113
Registered: 05-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 08, 2007 - 4:23 pm: | |
quote:I think the problem is most of the professional planners who advise these communities remain married to the idea that everything should look like suburbia. Governments tend to do what their professional advisers tell them to do. Until we can change the hearts and minds of the professionals, we will keep seeing more of what we already have.
As somebody who works professionally in the planning business in metro Detroit, I have to disagree. The vast majority of professional planners that I have met are among the most forward thinking people with their hands in the mix.
Besides Euclidean zoning rules, I think the problem is the elected politicians and the citizens who are appointed to planning commissions. Many of these people have been in their positions for so long and are so entrenched in their views, that it takes more effort than you could ever imagine to to produce development that doesn't fall into the "cookie cutter" category.
Additionally, I am all for openness in the planning process (e.g. meetings open to the public) but another problem is that when a new development is proposed (whether it be dense urbanity or more sprawl) the only people who generally show up to the planning meetings are those opposed to it. What may have been conceived by the original planners and architects as a dense multi-use district in a particular area quickly gets watered down to another exurban strip mall to appease those people from CAVE (aka Citizens Against Virtually Everything) who show up without fail to every planning meeting. |
Novine
Member
Username: Novine
Post Number: 33
Registered: 07-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 08, 2007 - 4:26 pm: | |
"Governments tend to do what their professional advisers tell them to do."
I disagree. Planners generally do what their clients tell them to do, especially the ones paying the bills. Rod Arroyo was one of Novi's consultants for years and while he helped introduce some urbanist ideas, ultimately every city reflects the wishes of its decision-makers. |
Professorscott
Member
Username: Professorscott
Post Number: 607
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, August 09, 2007 - 1:32 am: | |
Don't know how it works in other cities, but I was involved with city government in an Oakland county 'burb in the 1990s and am now a planning commish for an east-burb community. I am familiar with modern trends and I am a "new urbanist" to some extent, but I'm a lone wolf. In both the earlier gig and this one, our appointed officials pretty much kowtow to the professionals. (Our elected officials pretty much kowtow to everybody.)
Dannaroo has one good point though: it's hard for community leaders to actually lead when most of the public doesn't understand the ramifications of the choices they think they want us to make. And of course it doesn't help that many local politicos are thin-skinned and weak, and afraid to make short-term unpopular decisions to implement a smarter long-term strategy.
Is there any hope? Or should I just move out of Michigan like most people who want better communities have done and continue to do? |
Dannaroo
Member
Username: Dannaroo
Post Number: 129
Registered: 05-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, August 16, 2007 - 12:01 pm: | |
With a partial hanks to DetroitYes, here's a bit of an update on this one:
Royal Oak Gateway Plaza Plans Not Finished Yet |
Professorscott
Member
Username: Professorscott
Post Number: 645
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, August 16, 2007 - 12:16 pm: | |
Interesting. If Schostak didn't consider that a plan with legs, why on Earth did they post it on their website? |
Johnlodge
Member
Username: Johnlodge
Post Number: 1838
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 16, 2007 - 12:22 pm: | |
LOL! A lot of things don't happen, despite talk on the DetroitYES forum. What in the world are we doing in that article? |
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