Developer promises completion of Royal Oak's first hotel by next year

After five years and the demolition of a former car dealership site on Main Street, Royal Oak will see a Hyatt hotel, a mixed-use building and a parking deck by next year, a developer promised.

“I think you’re going to see a lot of action at that site from here on out,” Greg Cooksey of Trailhead RO LLC told City Commissioners.

He added the timeline for project completion is September 2018. Cooksey has worked in a development partnership on the project with Versa Development in Southfield.

City Commissioners approved a few changes to the proposed project Monday night and preliminary construction is underway at the former Jim Fresard Pontiac-Buick-GMC dealership site just north of 11 Mile Road.

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The six-story hotel is designed to have 123 rooms on the top three floors, a bar cafe in the lobby, over 1,600 square feet of meeting rooms and a 4,400-square-foot restaurant on the ground floor, and 18,000 square feet of office space on the second floor.

An eight-story mixed-use building will have about 10,600 square feet of space for retail, offices or personal services on the ground floor. The floors above will house 91 residential units, including studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments.

Behind the hotel and mixed-use building a two-story parking deck will have spaces for 267 cars, in addition to 86 spaces in surface parking lots.

“I think this is going to be good for the community and I happily support this,” said Mayor Michael Fournier.

The buildings will occupy property from 400 through 460 N. Main Street on a 3.5 acre site.

The project is estimated to represent about a $60 million investment. Royal Oak’s Downtown Development Authority has been involved in helping the project come to fruition over the past several years and granted the developers a tax break. The developers will get reimbursement of up to $3 million in tax increment finance revenue over a period of up to 10 years that otherwise would have been paid to the DDA.

“It’s been a bit of a roller coaster ride because the developers are building a parking lot and a hotel,” said Jay Dunstan, chairman of the DDA, “ and it’s very difficult to get financing for both of those.”

Still, Dunstan applauded the developers’ persistence is staying with the project and bringing the first flagship hotel to downtown Royal Oak.

“I give these guys a lot of credit,” he said. “They could have just sold the land. But they fought tooth, claw and nail and they are making this work. And we’re going to get a hotel, which everybody wanted.”

Elevator shafts are already being constructed at the site. During excavation of the site workers ran into the concrete base of what was left of the former Royal Oak High School, which later became Clara Barton Junior High before it was demolished. Rather than haul the old concrete away it was processed on site for use in the construction, Cooksey said.