Some developers locally and around the nation have looked at giving motels the residential treatment with affordable units and even some market-rate units as the housing crisis continues. 

If you travel Woodward Avenue regularly, you may pass one such conversion every day without realizing it: the former Motorama Motel, most recently known as the Ferndale Flats on Woodward, at the northwest corner of Woodward and Eight Mile Road on the Ferndale/Detroit border.

The project, developed by Detroit-based The Ferlito Group, sold in May for an undisclosed price to an entity called Flats of Ferndale LLC, registered in Farmington Hills to investor Jason Abro. 

Plans for the property, which was shrunk from a 60-room motel to a 36-unit market-rate apartment, are not known. The seller was not available for comment Tuesday and I couldn’t get in touch with Abro through LinkedIn.

Ferlito’s project — a $3.7 million effort that was completed in 2020 — brought the property that had long been plagued by drugs, fighting and police complaints into the modern era with new finishes, rewired mechanical systems, exterior renovations, paint, accents and front doors. 

Ferndale Flats has six studios averaging 308 square feet with an asking rent of $986 per month, according to CoStar Group Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based real estate information service. The remaining 30 one-bedroom units average 425 square feet and have an asking price of $1,030. 

The Ferndale Flats definitely isn’t the only recent motel-to-apartment conversion. But to be clear, I’m only talking about motels-to-apartments, not hotels-to-apartments. The key difference between motels and hotels is the design. 

Motels tend to be smaller with room entrances directly to the outdoors. They also tend to be, let’s say, more Spartan, with fewer amenities. Hotels, by contrast, have lobbies, can have hundreds of rooms and generally have more guest features and experiences. 

Another such conversion is in Wayne County. 

The old Rode-Way Motel on Michigan Avenue in Inkster had been condemned, believed to be plagued by drug use and prostitution, according to a January 2023 WDIV-TV (Channel 4) report. 

Then, after purchasing it in late 2021, Redford Township-based AAHM Investments LLC converted the former 64-unit hotel into 32 apartments, now called the Avenue Apartments of Inkster. Online listings for the one-bedroom units say starting rent is $900 for the 500-square-foot units.

In Kalamazoo’s Vine Street neighborhood, the LIFT Foundation turned the former Knights Inn motel into 60 units targeting the formerly unhoused population, according to WOOD TV. 

There are also projects in Atlanta, suburban Orlando, Fla., Stanton, Calif., Fayetteville, Ark., and Charlotte, N.C., among plenty of other cities around the country. 

Some elected officials have started taking notice of the potential motels have for addressing the housing crisis.

For example, Connecticut Public Radio/WNPR reported that lawmakers there were considering a measure that would make it so developers statewide wouldn’t need special permitting or zoning approval to convert motels into multifamily housing. 

Detroit and its suburbs around Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Washtenaw and Livingston counties certainly have no shortage of motels, so perhaps more of them will become more permanent housing stock in the future. 

Time will tell.