Is Summit Place the next to join the list of Oakland County's mall memories
Township, owners hope complex�s woes can be turned around
Of The Oakland Press
A new baseball park near housing and shops?
These suggestions and more have been offered in the past five months at Summit Place visioning workshops organized by Waterford Township.
Township officials and mall owner Namco of Los Angeles are having workshops to determine the area's future zoning. The hope, they say, is to reinvigorate the largely vacant 1.3-million-square-foot mall, which opened in 1962, and bring more people and business to the area.
But the mall's transition from boom to bust is not unique around Oakland County.
Dead mall history
Rochester Hills had three malls that didn't make it as enclosed facilities.
Great Oaks Mall, at Walton and Livernois, across from Crittenton Hospital
Winchester Mall, at Avon and Rochester roads
Meadowbrook Village Mall at Adams Road and Walton Boulevard "Meadowbrook and Great Oaks were smaller-scale malls," said Ed Anzek, Rochester Hills' director of planning and development.
"They just didn't generate enough activity. Without big anchors, they just dwindled and declined."
When it came time for changes, the three malls' owners didn't turn to the community for guidance, Anzek remembered.
"They came in, presented plans and said, �This is what we're going to do,' " he said.
The now-thriving Village of Rochester Hills shopping center had a long birth, about a decade, Anzek said.
In September 2002, the 375,000-square-foot Village of Rochester Hills opened to the public. Often referred to as a "Main Street" concept, the shopping center mimics a small downtown, with individual storefronts. Parisian anchors the north end, with a 120,000-square-foot department store.
Winchester Mall owners abandoned the traditional mall setup and converted to big-box retail with separate entrances in the mid-1990s.
Great Oaks, anchored by Jacobson's, had also been declining, Anzek said.
The facility was demolished and the site split. Developers are building a medical office with retail on the eastern half. A Walgreens sits on the western half.
Built in 1968, the 630,000-square-foot Tel-12 Mall - at the corner of 12 Mile and Telegraph roads - underwent a change similar to Winchester and was converted to big-box stores around 2001.
Some malls OK
Activity is still evident at some area malls, including Oakland Mall and Somerset Collection, both in Troy, and Great Lakes Crossing in Auburn Hills.
At Novi-based Twelve Oaks Mall, owned by Bloomfield Hills-based Taubman Centers, 21 stores will open this fall as part of a 300,000-square-foot expansion.
Construction started last year on the new wing, which will include a two-level, 165,000-square-foot Nordstrom department store. Twelve Oaks, which opened in 1977, has nearly 180 stores.
Summit Place advice
Ask around and it becomes obvious everyone has an opinion on what to do about Summit Place's woes.
Michael Bernacchi, a marketing professor at the University of Detroit Mercy, praised consultants and planners for involving the public in the process.
"If the community feels part of it, it's well on its way to success," he said.
But Bernacchi cautioned planners.
"It's one thing to lay out a vision," he noted, "but it's another thing to put it into action."
Nicholas Banda, director of planning for Southfield, has been hearing about the Waterford workshops.
"I'd advise them to be as creative and forceful with the owners as they can," Banda said.
Banda - who believes the newer Great Lakes Crossing killed Summit Place - urged Waterford should not "go halfway," he said. "Don't try to retrofit. If everyone is creative and open-minded, it can be done," he said.
Novi planner Tim Schmitt advised Waterford to consider a mixed-use plan.
"You have to get residential on that site, along with office-type space," Schmitt said. "You need to get more people there."
Schmitt said Great Lakes Crossing has so much retail that Summit Place needs to diversify its shops.
"(With the publicity and workshops), people are realizing it needs to be very different," he said. "But different is not bad, it's good in this case."
Schmitt reacted positively to the idea of an independent baseball ballpark on the site, an idea proposed by a group of Waterford businessmen.
"That is the kind of thing that would draw people to the area," he said.
Anzek, Rochester Hills' planning director, believes Waterford could attract people with a lifestyle concept.
"You could have housing on the site for people who work in the Oakland County government center up the road," he said.
On a recent trip through Ohio, Anzek was surprised how many "lifestyle" type centers are there - places that combined housing, sports bars, restaurants and shops.
But he admitted "it's tough right now" in Michigan.
"You need the right market mix for it to work," Anzek said. Jen McBurney, a resident of Sylvan Lake who attended the first visioning workshop, would like to see something similar to the Village of Rochester Hills Main Street design at Summit Place.
"Retail with restaurants," she said, "and a park with a stage for local artists to do concerts or for outdoor movies. It would not have to be huge, just a place for a couple hundred people."
McBurney, who works for a land developer, believes those amenities would draw residents from Pontiac, the Bloomfield area, Waterford and Keego Harbor.
"It's dead now," she said. "You have to give people a reason to come there."
Contact Carol Hopkins at (248) 745-4645 or carol.hopkins@oakpress.com.What's next
The fourth and final community workshop on Summit Place mall's redevelopment will be held sometime in May or June at the Oakland Schools building, 2111 Pontiac Lake Road in Waterford.
The consultants' final recommendations for a preferred redevelopment concept will be presented and discussed. The township then will begin to develop zoning-ordinance language that will allow redevelopment to proceed.
Sports center possible for mall
It's idea to revive Summit Place
April 15, 2007
What's the best use for Summit Place mall, the mammoth Waterford shopping center now more than 60% vacant?
How about a sports center?
That is one of the latest -- and perhaps most innovative -- ideas to come out of a series of community workshops held in recent months with residents, planners, consultants and city officials grappling with the mall's future.
But a decision likely is still months away.
The consultants Harley Ellis Devereaux and JJR are working with the township to assist in the planning.
The sports center -- which might include a minor league baseball stadium and ice rink -- will be one of the topics discussed in a meeting this spring. The township also is considering using some of the space for new housing. A date has not been set for the fourth and final workshop.
"That's one of the things we're considering," township Supervisor Carl Solden said of a sports center. "We're hoping to make it a destination spot that would bring people into Waterford."
New stores won't do the trick, planners say. "One of our concerns is that there is just way too much retail space," Solden said. "That area is saturated."
Ultimately, the decision on what to do will be made by the owner of the mall, Namco, a California-based company, in conjunction with the township, which would have some say because of possible changes in zoning.
And Solden said the township will not rush its decision. "We want to be sure we're doing the right thing, that it will benefit this community and the surrounding area," he said.
The mall, built in the 1960s at the corner of Telegraph and Elizabeth Lake roads, once was a major shopping magnet for north and central Oakland County, and it still attracts shoppers with its four anchor stores: Macy's, Kohls, JCPenney and Sears.
Some smaller shops have hung on, but the mall is at least 60% vacant.
The mall's troubles began in the 1990s as shoppers sought more updated -- and upscale -- environs, such as Troy's Somerset Collection. Then, in 1998, Great Lakes Crossing opened in Auburn Hills.
In the last year, Summit Place restaurants began to close, including Ruby Tuesday and all but one of the food court concessions. The mall has only about 400 employees; it once had more than 1,000.
Contact L.L. BRASIER at 248-858-2262 or brasier@freepress.com.
Copyright © 2007 Detroit Free Press Inc.
Also: Summit Place Mall Mash-up http://www.spmmashup.blogspot.com
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