Royal Oak officials have made it clear: Sprawling exurban-style development, featuring acres of surface parking lots surrounding a single business are not welcome in its downtown area.
Schostak Brothers & Company is recipient of this message now that the Royal Oak Downtown Development Authority is pushing for the city to buy back the Gateway Plaza parcel at Woodward Avenue and I-696 on the southern edge of downtown.
Schostak presented plans to the city earlier this summer to construct a single-story building for LA Fitness surrounded by surface parking lots. Those plans, stereotypical of past development in Metro Detroit, were quickly rejected. The original development agreement calls for a mixed-use, multi-story retail/residential/office/hotel development.
"Our first choice is to have the property developed according to the terms of the development agreement," says Kevin Kalczynski, chair of the Royal Oak DDA.
Developing the Gateway Plaza property has turned into an odyssey of epic proportions where numerous plans have surfaced and sank over the last 20 years. This latest chapter includes the city taking the first steps to buy back the 4-acre parcel from Schostak for $3 million. Although the DDA has authorized terminating the agreement and buying back the land, the Royal Oak City Commission still needs to sign off on it before it can happen.
Calls to the Schostak office were not returned; however, President Bob Schostak told metromode in August that the LA Fitness plans were a preliminary idea for the development and that nothing was final.
Originally the site of a car dealership, what is now Gateway Plaza was cleared to make room for a more urban-style development with mixed-use buildings built up to the lot line, like those in traditional downtowns. The city has made a point of encouraging the construction of dense, mixed-use buildings in its downtown to promote the area as a 24/7 destination.
Source: Kevin Kalczynski, chair of the Royal Oak Downtown Development Authority
Writer: Jon Zemke
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