Rehab to turn 401 N Main from eyesore to Royal Oak gem

Watch out now. No, one of downtown Royal Oak's biggest blights isn't coming down. It's coming back to life.

Work has begun on 401 N Main St., a building deemed so dangerous by city officials last summer that dates with a wrecking ball were be scheduled. Today, construction workers are hammering new life into it, rehabbing the 2-story structure into a contemporary office space.

"It should be buttoned up by the end of the year," says Jim Schneider, president of Royal Oak-based Schnieder+Smith Architects, which is designing the project.

The building at the corner of Main and West University Avenue, about a block from the Main Art Theatre, started to become blighted earlier this decade when a condo conversion plan for the 1920s storefront fell through.

Other plans came and went until the city took action, forcing the rehab or death of the 5,000-square-foot structure. That prompted the old owner to sell it to the current developer.

Source: Jim Schneider, president of Royal Oak-based Schnieder+Smith Architects
Writer: Jon Zemke

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Rehab to turn 401 N Main from eyesore to Royal Oak gem

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