A deep-pocketed homebuilder with deep roots in Oakland County — Bloomfield Hills-based Robertson Households — has been filling the soaring desire for starter households close to Detroit with large projects in Ferndale and Royal Oak.
© Robertson Homes
This artist’s rendering displays the design of 3-tale, two-bedroom condominiums planned for a complicated of 54 units in Hazel Park, to be priced in the small $200,000s in accordance to Robertson Households.
Now it ideas to build in Hazel Park.

Load Mistake
Robertson Properties on Saturday opened an business office trailer for house sales on a site along Woodward Heights, just east of John R, in Hazel Park where the organization options to construct 54 a few-tale townhouses. The developer described it signed up five prospective buyers on Saturday, just about 10% of the out there models.
The swath of condos, likely up where a vacant parochial university was demolished, will be the major batch of new homes that Hazel Park has seen crafted in a long time, Hazel Park Metropolis Supervisor Ed Klob reported.
It’s the latest indicator that metro Detroit’s building of entry-degree housing, which once surged only in townships at the edge of sprawling exurbia, has returned with vigor to the region’s core — Detroit’s internal-ring suburbs. It is an area in which “for sale” signals have, in just a ten years, replaced a rash of foreclosures and cratering property values.
Robertson Houses recently completed major clusters of condominiums and one-spouse and children residences in Ferndale and Royal Oak. The organization is possibly best-known for its Townes at the Corner in Detroit’s Corktown area, where by the builder’s luxurious condos ring the web-site of the previous Tiger Stadium, setting up in suitable industry and curving into centre subject.
In Hazel Park, the new housing is the most up-to-date in a string of upbeat news about this mostly small-money town of about 16,000 citizens. The Great Recession strike it challenging, and the closing of Hazel Park Harness Raceway in April 2018 dealt a entire body blow to a town hall currently battling deficits.
However, this town that borders Detroit to the south and Warren to the east has steered a large Amazon warehouse to the grounds of the shuttered racetrack, viewed storefronts upgraded and astonished gourmands throughout metro Detroit when an elite restaurant opened whose chef was so hot that Cost-free Push Cafe Critic Mark Kurlyandchik directed a documentary film about him — a place where by choose-outs involve Green Curry Mussels ($22) and Crispy Sea Bream with salt-and-vinegar chips ($25).
Mabel Gray’s chef James Rigato, achieved at his chaotic eatery on Friday evening just after he catered a large-conclude occasion elsewhere, said he was delighted to hear of the new housing.
“I’m actually liking how Hazel Park has diversified into a really great mix,” Rigato reported, sounding like a chef turned economist. His chic place is just throughout John R Highway from wherever the new townhouses will go up, just one particular block east.
Which is a bragging level for Robertson Homes Senior Vice President Darian Neubecker. The two-bedroom condos are aimed to market in the lower-to-mid-$200,000s when the first is comprehensive in late spring or early summer season of 2021, Neubecker explained.
Most spots where Robertson Houses likes to create are “places with walkable, conventional downtowns — that is the place we have observed good results,” he stated. Hazel Park is not that, instead possessing what city planners connect with a linear corridor on John R Street.
“But we’ve been checking Hazel Park for a extended time,” observing as the city’s fortunes turned up, he explained.
“We’re throughout John R from Mabel Grey, and we’re in a community that is nestled involving Royal Oak, Ferndale and downtown Detroit, so you’re a 15-moment Uber journey from anywhere” in metro Detroit, he mentioned. Each apartment will have a a person-auto connected garage with more floor parking nearby, and they are to be virtually equivalent to people created a short while ago in Ferndale.
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“It’s of course the premier housing development that Hazel Park has observed in some time. We were in a position to set up a Neighborhood Organization Zone, which will abbreviate the residence taxes of our new householders for eight a long time,” Neubecker reported.
That along with other funding aid will enable several consumers buy a rental for a mere $6,000 or $7,000 down and then pay back less than $1,500 a thirty day period, “including your taxes and rental dues,” he said.
Robertson Houses lately done rows of condominiums and new houses in Royal Oak on the border of a previous golf class, where by 40-acre Normandy Oaks Park is beneath development. The business also not long ago crafted scores of new residences and condos in Ferndale, and they’ve marketed rapidly — a perform of metro-Detroit’s pent-up demand for starter residences, claimed Ferndale Neighborhood and Financial Enhancement Director Jordan Twardy.
“They did two assignments below. I’m going for walks my dog past one particular of them right now,” Twardy said Friday through a cellphone interview, as he and shepherd-lab-mix Allie strolled previous some of Robertson Homes’ 72 townhouse-design and style condos, recently finished on a previous university web-site just north of Garbutt Park.
© Jason Twardy
This photograph taken on Nov. 13, 2020 displays a person cluster of 72 townhouse-type condominiums a short while ago designed in Ferndale, of which only eight models keep on being unsold according to a indication put by builder Robertson Houses. (Image: Jordan Twardy)
“I imagine they only have 8 models still left on the city houses. The make them as they provide them,” Twardy said,.
Twardy is intimately common with the developments, having supervised what the city needed in advance of offering Robertson Households a environmentally friendly gentle.
“In these town properties, what they did for us is they created pathways via the advanced with raised-bed gardens and seating, so you can stroll proper by to the park. We didn’t want it to be an isolated project that wasn’t connected to the encompassing neighborhood,” he explained.
A lot less than a mile absent, the firm created 28 one-family members households on one more college site, southeast of downtown Ferndale and beside Wilson Park. The single-household residences have detached garages in the rear, matching the dominant glance of Ferndale’s households – one more design characteristic that Ferndale officials sought.
Most prized of all, even though, has been the sheer injection of new residents, drawn to the housing heading up around Detroit, in spots wherever just a ten years in the past the housing values had been plummeting.
“When I was in grad college, they taught us there is a pent-up demand from customers for this sort of thing. Persons want to dwell near the facilities — shops, parks, dining, even their work. The inner ring is extremely compact, you are shut to a ton of things, and numerous of the towns are executing things to maximize that experience,” Twardy said.
Ferndale Mayor Melanie Piana claimed she was satisfied with the city’s new housing.
“The people who are living there explain to me they enjoy it,” Piana explained on Sunday.
Southfield has received awards for increasing the walkability of Evergreen Street close to the city’s massive library. Warren Mayor Jim Fouts is plugging ideas for a walkable quasi-downtown planned for the space on Van Dyke around Warren City Hall.
As downtown Detroit regained its standing as a cultural and enjoyment magnet, the city’s nearby suburbs have regained charm — and residence values.
“For us, the ideal matter is that this is just a whole lot of households coming in this article,” Twardy explained. He could’ve been speaking for any individual at Hazel Park Town Hall.
Contact: blaitner@freepress.com
This report originally appeared on Detroit Absolutely free Push: Hazel Park is the latest place for chic condos close to Detroit