"Billions" of investment coming to Pontiac (Detroit, Flint: crime, home)

[Geo-Aggie]

That's according to this article, anyway:
Thousands of jobs, billions of investment headed for Pontiac, developers say | MLive.com

I'm probably as skeptical as you are about you on the "billionS" part, but even if the Williams International relocation alone goes ahead with investment into Pontiac, that'd be a big deal for the city. I've been to Pontiac a couple times since moving here. It shows all the signs of "bad city about to become real good." Plus then you consider its nearest neighbors, Bloomfield Hills, Auburn Hills, Rochester Hills, all those lake towns... Pontiac is really primed to take off sooner or later. Is this the big anchor investment it needs to become the "next" major beneficiary of reurbanization?

I'll say this much, between this Pontiac discussion, the offices going into Royal Oak, the infill home building of the Woodward Communities, and the continuing buzz around the Detroit Fairgrounds PUD - the Woodward Corridor is going to be the place to be for the next decade or so. Now if we could just make that Highland Park Ford Factory into a beautiful museum which would attract us suburbanites...

[DTWflyer]

Highly skeptical of a lot of those things that more or less talk about generic buzz-word industries like 3D printing and hi-tech, whatever they are refering too. Its a lot of pie-in-the-sky stuff there. Some of that article feels like stuff we were reading in 2007, and then the bottom fell-out.

That said, the move of Williams and United Shore are pretty much going to happen. However, Shore is going to be located a bit away from the downtown area and assuming we don't suddenly go into a downturn in the housing market.

Downtown Pontiac was on an upward trajectory in the early 2000s. Then the bottom fell-out.
It doesn't really have anything to "anchor" the downtown though, and isn't really showing signs of investment for housing/living space.

Pontiac has always been the redheaded step-child of Oakland County that L Brooks Patterson always iqnores.

[Geo-Aggie]

I too have my concerns and issues with L. Sprawl Patterson, but there are certain trends which are beyond his control and the one-level suburban office park is falling out of favor. This is why areas like Royal Oak and Birmingham have seen/are seeing such high levels of investment. As these places get more and more posh and expensive, hopefully those with a tighter budget looking for an urban area within Oakland County will continue to look toward Pontiac rather than the sprawlburbs.

While similar things may have been going on before 2007, that was an exceptional economic downturn. Despite the crowing of internet-doomsdayers (which has been pretty well ongoing since the beginning of the internet), there's very little to suggest a similar scenario in 2017.

[usroute10]

Pontiac should be Oakland County's premiere office and entertainment center, not Birmingham and Royal Oak. First of all, all of Oakland's government offices should be located in downtown Pontiac like Macomb's government offices are in downtown Mount Clemens.

Unfortunately, Pontiac suffered the same white flight, disinvestment, and increase in crime that Detroit and Highland Park experienced, although the extent of Pontiac's decline was not as severe.

Pontiac has some pretty awesome historic housing directly adjacent to, or within a mile or 2, of its downtown, but for some reason, it is not a very well built city outside of its downtown. Much of the housing is non-descript, and outside of downtown, there are no "streetwalls" or urban commercial districts. Flint is the same way, and even Ann Arbor to an extent. Contrast that with the city of Detroit, which had numerous walkable neighborhood commercial districts all over the city in every direction.

A few years ago, I read about a proposal to daylight the portion of the Clinton River that flows through downtown Pontiac. Maybe this could seriously be considered and, given all of the deep pockets in Oakland County, developing the Clinton River somewhat like San Antonio's Riverwalk could be possibility. This could be that "draw" that DTWFlyer was talking about.

[lynnc99]

I for one would love to see Pontiac as home to business and tech companies. If you build it...they will come - and by that I mean that improved housing, retail, and entertainment space will follow the jobs and business to the Pontiac area. Clearly, Auburn Hills is pulling it off with great success.

First step: the Silverdome property!

[MS313]

Yes I feel like Pontiac is the ORIGINAL Birmingham/ Royal Oak. I would love to see it get back to being a strong satellite city and the center for Oakland County. With all the wealth surrounding Pontiac, and Pontiac being kind of a historic city in the middle of OC it makes you wonder how it didn't get much investment over the years. The good news is Pontiac is small so it won't take a ton of money to see big improvements around town.

[usroute10]

It would have been nice if Oakland University would have located its Medical School in downtown Pontiac when they inaugurated it a few years ago. The next time that Oakland University wants to build a new school or college, they should locate it in downtown Pontiac, like so many other universities in college towns and suburban areas who open schools in the downtown of the nearby cities.

Downtown Pontiac should be the residential destination for OU students who don't want to live on campus, and don't want to live at home either.

[DTWflyer]

Pontiac as been a microcosm of bad urban planning decisions for decades.
- Moving Oakland County offices out of the downtown to the campus area on the border of Waterford
- Wide Track which basically chokes-off downtown from surrounding neighborhoods
- Phoenix Center, a burtalist design of concrete and parking garages that was never really used as intended
- The Silverdome....(more of a regional planning issue)
- Burying the Clinton River through downtown

Not to mention, like other industry towns in Michigan, at the mercy of boom & bust cycles which have hit the town hard over the years.