Royal Oak continued to inch closer to giving the nod to a major hotel complex proposal downtown that includes an apartment and office building.
But on Monday, the City Commission, while praising the plan, voted 5-0 to send it back to the Planning Commission to review major last-minute changes that took city officials by surprise, reports Bill Laitner of the Detroit Free Press.
Mayor Jim Ellison told the team of developers the plan needed further study. The project, to be built at 400 N. Main Street, north of 11 Mile Road, includes a 112-room hotel, an eight-story apartment building and a five-story office building with a large restaurant, the Freep reported.
The Planning Commission approved the plan June 11.
Laitner writes of the recent changes:
But planning commissioners attached contingencies that included concerns about whether the development would have enough parking in a downtown where parking already is scarce. A city parking evaluation estimated that the project at peak demand would require 617 parking spaces while supplying only 564, a deficit of 53 spaces.
Also, in the three weeks since the original plan was approved by the planning commissioner, the developer sliced from the design several screening walls and major amounts of landscaping while bringing some buildings closer to sidewalks, according to a memo to commissioners from City Manager Don Johnson.
