Downtown Royal Oak’s Eight 55 building to start construction in spring

It takes a little bit of everything to make the Eight 55 South Main project viable. Mix in some ground floor retail below a couple of floors of residential space then add a few floors of office space and voila! you have downtown Royal Oak‘s newest five-story mixed-use building.

“The trend with flourishing cities is that they are made up of a lot of mixed-use projects,” says Philip Damico, project manager for Eight 55 South Main. “There will be people coming and going from the building all day long. That will go a long way toward making it successful.”

Damico expects to break ground on the project early next spring now that his company has approval from the city to accommodate retail, residential and office space. Construction is expected to take about one year, paving the way for an early 2009 opening.

The developer, Damico Development, reconfigured the make up of the building at 855 S. Main St. to include 18,000 square feet of Class A office space on the second and third floors of the five-story building earlier this year. The first floor will be dedicated to 9,500 square feet of non-restaurant retail space so future residents won’t have to put up with the noise and smells of food service directly below them.

The building had originally been designed to house 50 loft-style condos, but Damico lowered that number to 30 so it could add office space to the development and make it easier to sell the units in a tough market.

The lofts will go on the fourth and fifth floors of the building. So far about 10 have been reserved. They include high ceilings, hardwood floors, granite counter tops and private balconies that are worked into the building so they aren’t hanging out over the street.

For information on the development, call (248) 458-1122.

Source: Philip Damico, project manager for Eight 55 South Main
Writer: Jon Zemke