A hotel to replace Kroger?

Remember this from last August?

[T]here will not be a Kroger on Main Street in Royal Oak.
...
Time for plan B. I wonder if Whole Foods is interested in buying a $3.5 million dollar property and complying with Royal Oak's master plan?

Whole Foods has other plans that don't involve Royal Oak, but Plan B has materialized.

A real estate brokerage representing Fresard Investments LP is shopping plans for an eight-story hotel in Royal Oak to the city's Downtown Development Authority to gauge its interest in the project.

Southfield-based CBRE Group Inc. is working with Fresard on plans for the site. Preliminary plans, submitted to the DDA to provide context for a discussion at its Wednesday meeting, call for redevelopment of the former Jim Fresard Pontiac-Buick-GMC auto dealership at 400 N. Main St.

Plans also include a banquet facility and five-story mixed-use development with apartments and retail.

Here's what it looks like.


 Full sized version here.
Looks to me like the design has "storefront continuity," which the Kroger didn't have, but the Planning Commission will decide that. As for whether this is an improvement, I'd say yes. I'm sure there will be more traffic in the evening, but I like the idea of making this mixed use. I promise to keep you all posted about developments of this story as I find them out.