JC Reindl

Detroit Free Press

A Royal Oak shopping center and more than two dozen surrounding row houses are to be emptied this summer and demolished in the fall when Beaumont Health restarts its long-delayed plans for redeveloping the entire block at busy 13 Mile and Woodward.

The Northwood Shopping Center, which includes a Kroger store, dates to the 1950s and is only 59% occupied, with the remaining tenants on month-to-month leases. Beaumont Hospital owns the shopping center and surrounding property, which neighbors its main campus. It bought the land in 1982.

"It was a good investment for us," said Colette Stimmell, vice president of communications for Beaumont Health, "but it's reached a point where the shopping center itself is old, it's outdated, it really needs to be upgraded, and that's what we're looking to do here."

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The demolition will include the Firestone service center as well as 28 brick row houses on the block that are now mostly empty. The shopping center's parking lot will still be available this summer for the Woodward Dream Cruise, although any future Dream Cruise dates are undetermined.

"It depends on what we build there," Stimmell said.

Once the shopping center and other buildings are down, the nonprofit health system will try its hand at real estate development. Beaumont hopes to break ground next spring on some type of mixed-use project on the site. What exactly that project would include has not been determined, Stimmell said, but would likely feature retail and office space. ​

News of the Northwood demolition plans was first reported by Crain's Detroit.

Beaumont is distributing surveys to its staff, doctors and nearby residents to gather ideas on what people would like to see replace the aging shopping center. The results of the survey are to influence the project's final design.

"We have some Beaumont needs, but we also want to make sure that we're meeting community needs too," Stimmell said.

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Beaumont has been eyeing redevelopment of the shopping center property for years. It drew up proposals in 2008 for various new hospital buildings there, including an outpatient clinic, but dropped those plans as the recession took hold.

Since then, the shopping center has lost more tenants, including the once-popular Irish pub Four Green Fields. Of the 28 row houses, six are currently occupied with tenants, three of whom are Beaumont resident physicians. Tenants in the shopping center have until July 1 to leave.

The Firestone also intends to relocate somewhere nearby. It has occupied a small building at the shopping center since 1966.

"We've know this was coming for awhile — it was just a matter of time," said Shelby Sims, manager at Leo's Coney Island. The restaurant plans to relocate, but has yet to decide where. "Stores have been closing out one-by-one. We're one of the last ones standing."

"It's getting old, so it's time to start over again," said employee Sam Preast.

Kroger spokesman Ken McClure said the company has yet to set a closing date for the Northwood store. There are no current plans to relocate the store, although Kroger is in talks with Beaumont to possibly join the future redevelopment. In the meantime, a new Kroger is set to open in Royal Oak at 12 Mile and Stephenson Highway in the third or fourth quarter this year.

"We love the (Northwood) location, and we would love to be a part of the new development there that Beaumont is working on," McClure said.

The shopping center's last occupant will be the Childtime Leaning Center, a daycare for children of Beaumont employees that occupies a former Rite Aid store. A new Childtime center is scheduled to open this fall along 13 Mile at the site of Royal Oak's former Parker Elementary School.

Contact JC Reindl: 313-222-6631 or jcreindl@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter@JCReindl.

Northwood Shopping Center facts: