Main Place Opening First Phase With Bookstore

ROYAL OAK, MI-A marketing office opens July 13 for the Skylofts Royal Oak, a multi-use development in Downtown. The eight-story building will cost $25 million to build, with construction beginning in the fall, says David Strosberg, a developer from theMorningside Group of Chicago.

The project will have about 20,000 sf of retail on the first floor, a parking garage on the second and third floor and 70 luxury lofts on the next five floors.

“The lofts will be priced from $200,000 to $600,000,” Strosberg tells GlobeSt.com.

Skylofts is part of the $50-million Main Place project. The nearly completed first phase includes a 50,000-sf retail building. The anchor for the building, a Barnes and Noble bookstore, opens July 3.

Main Place also includes a 12,000-sf, two-story Nik’s Blowfish Sushi Steak and Drink, Atlanta Bread Company, and American Home Fitness.

The two-story Barnes & Noble bookstore will stock more than 200,000 books, including 15,000 volumes for children; 50,000 music titles and thousands of videos and DVDs. The store will include a Starbucks cafe.

Nik’s Blowfish Sushi Steak and Drink will open Nov. 1, for private parties and will be open to the public before Thanksgiving Day.

Bakery café Atlanta Bread will come to Main Place in late August and in September, American Home Fitness opens.

“People won’t have to traipse to the mall to enjoy world-class shopping and dining,” Strosberg says. “We hope Main Place will enrich residents’ daily lives and encourage more people to come live, work and enjoy all Royal Oak has to offer.”

Another building on Center Street will become the information center for the loft project, Strosberg says.

More than 120 county and city officials, state representatives and business leaders will attend grand opening of phase one of Main Place at a ribbon-cutting ceremony held at 10 a.m. on June 27.