Royal Oak Facebook LIVE Q & A Event Planned

ROYAL OAK, MI — You may not be able to fight city hall, but Royal Oak residents will get a chance to ask city leaders about the upcoming City Center project. The city will hold a question and answer session on Facebook LIVE Wednesday at 8 p.m. Officials will attempt to answer residents’ most frequently asked questions about construction of a new city hall and police station.

Why is a new facility being explored? What is the cost to taxpayers? Why not just renovate the existing building? What are possible sites? These are just a few of the questions that will answered. The event will also be broadcast live on YouTube, WROK and live streamed on romi.gov.

Royal Oak’s City Commission recently cleared the way for construction of a new police station, with groundbreaking coming as soon as August. The facility is expected to cost about $18 million, but that price could increase depending on what green initiatives officials decide to incorporate into its design, the Macomb Daily reported.

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The new police station is part of Royal Oak’s City Center Project. It will also include a new City Hall, parking deck and downtown park. Estimates for all the projects combined is about $60 million.

The new city hall and police station are expected to be built on Royal Oak’s Farmers Market parking lot near the Royal Oak 44th District courthouse. Police Chief Corrigan O’Donohue in May told the Daily Tribune the current police facility is simply past its useful life.

“Our main goal in this was to design a building that was more efficient and I think we accomplished that,” he told the newspaper. “The building we are in now is literally falling apart.”

Wednesday’s town hall event can be accessed in a variety of ways:

• Facebook link
• YouTube link
• WROK cablecasts on two cable TV systems: Comcast (channel 17) and Wide Open West, or WOW (channel 10). WROK is not available on AT&T U-Verse system. However, a live simulcast of WROK programming is available to all online.

In addition, residents can ask questions about the project. Click Here to ask a question.

File photo