Drive down Woodward past Square Lake Road this month and you will pass a dark storefront that used to be a Zoup!, a clubhouse behind the trees that did not exist eighteen months ago, and at least one street where the curb is missing entirely. None of these things are connected in any official sense. But add them up and Bloomfield Township is in the middle of the most physically active stretch it has seen in years, and almost none of it required anyone to buy or sell a house to notice.
The clubhouse that took four years to come back
The biggest of these stories has been unfolding since February 2022, when a fire destroyed the century-old clubhouse at Oakland Hills Country Club. The building was one of the most recognizable in American golf, and for four years the club operated without a central gathering space while a nearly $100 million replacement rose in its place.
That replacement finally opened this spring. Members walked into the new clubhouse for the first time over three seatings of brunch on Easter Sunday, April 5, and the club marked its official opening later that month. What they got back is a steel structure built to look almost exactly like the wooden original, down to the white, ten-pillared veranda overlooking the South Course. General manager Marc Ray put it plainly at the reopening:
"What stands behind me is new, but what it represents is timeless."
The scale of that project says something about how the township's private clubs think about their buildings right now. This was not a renovation. It was a full rebuild, sized to carry the club through a run of major championships already on the books, including the U.S. Open in 2034 and 2051.
A much smaller version of the same instinct
You do not need a nine-figure budget to feel the same pressure. A few miles away on Saxon Drive, Birmingham Country Club asked Bloomfield Township's Board of Trustees this week to approve a kitchen, a snack bar, and a renovated terrace for its clubhouse. The hearing was set for Monday, August 10, and the ask itself is modest next to Oakland Hills: not a new building, just an updated kitchen and a terrace that can actually host people comfortably.
What connects the two is the timing, not the dollar figure. Both clubs are making their case for staying current in the same calendar year, one with a landmark rebuild and one with a kitchen and a snack bar. If you belong to either club, or live near one, this is the year the buildings finally catch up to the membership's expectations.
What's moving into the empty storefront
Not every change in the township involves a golf course. The stretch of Woodward just south of Square Lake Road has had a vacant storefront since Zoup! closed, and that space is now leased to Patty & Press, a smashburger concept from G&B Hospitality that already operates in Shelby Township. Co-owner Goran Dimic told What Now Detroit the team is hoping to open around September or October.
This is not a copy-paste of the Shelby Township location. The Bloomfield Township build-out is more than 1,700 square feet with 24 seats for dine-in customers, compared with eight seats at the original carryout-heavy spot. That is a real bet on foot traffic at a corner Dimic has described as one of the busiest intersections nearby, and it is worth noting because national chains have been the ones leaving storefronts like this one lately, not filling them.
The forest project that is still years away
The longest runway of anything happening in the township belongs to Bloomfield Hollow, a luxury event and catering venue from chef Zack Sklar, who already owns Mex and Beau's Grillery elsewhere in metro Detroit. The plan calls for building on roughly 30 acres of forested land on Franklin Road, just north of Square Lake Road, an area that is otherwise a mix of residential lots and undeveloped parcels.
This is not a rumor sitting in a press release. The project cleared a real procedural step in June, when it appeared on the Township Planning Commission's own docket as a site plan and special land use hearing. Sklar's team is aiming to break ground later this year, with an opening date reported for late 2027. That is a long way off, but the approval already happened, which is more than most proposed projects in this corner of the township can say.
The three miles under your feet
If your street is torn up right now, there is a good chance it is one of four inside Bloomfield Village's Phase 1 reconstruction. Allied Construction began curb installation on those streets on Thursday, July 23, and the Birmingham-Bloomfield Bulletin reported that driveway access would be blocked for up to two weeks as the work ramped through early August.
This is not a township-wide repaving effort. It is a special assessment district, meaning the residents on those specific streets petitioned for the work and are paying for it directly, rather than the township funding it out of general road dollars. The project covers close to 3.02 miles of roadway across parts of four Judson Bradway subdivisions inside the Village, and it involves pulverizing the old road bed and rebuilding it with new asphalt, curb, and drainage rather than just patching over what is already crumbling.
That distinction matters if you live nearby and wondered why your street got fixed while the one two blocks over did not. According to the group coordinating the project, the assessment stays tied to the property itself rather than the person who requested it, which is why residents vote on these projects block by block instead of waiting for the township to get around to it eventually.
What's landing when
Put the timeline together and the next eighteen months look like this:
- This month: Village Green Phase 1 curb work wraps on the affected streets, and the Birmingham Country Club hearing outcome becomes public record.
- September or October 2026: Patty & Press aims to open on Woodward in the former Zoup! space.
- Later in 2026: Bloomfield Hollow breaks ground on Franklin Road.
- Late 2027: Bloomfield Hollow is expected to open.
None of these dates are locked in stone. Restaurant openings slip, construction seasons run long, and hearing outcomes are not always what the applicant asked for. But the pattern holds regardless of exact timing. A landmark clubhouse just came back after four years away. A smaller clubhouse is asking for its own update. A national chain's old space is getting a second life. A forested parcel that has sat quiet for years just cleared its first real hurdle. And a specific set of streets in the Village are getting torn up and rebuilt because the people who live on them decided it was time.
That is a lot of change to happen in one township in one summer without a single one of these projects requiring anyone to move. It is the kind of season where the place changes shape while everyone living in it goes about their week, and it is worth noticing while it is happening rather than after the fact.
If you are watching these projects because you are thinking ahead about your own next move in Bloomfield Township, whenever that time comes, Christine Hossack has spent years tracking exactly this kind of local detail. Let's Connect.
