Arts, Beats & Eats has a home in Royal Oak

BY BILL LAITNER
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

Royal Oak officials, disappointed after losing a broadcast chain's New Year's Eve celebration planned for their downtown, were all smiles Tuesday when it became official the Arts, Beats & Eats festival is to relocate there in 2010.

The announcement at Sangria's restaurant in downtown Royal Oak was a blow for Pontiac -- host of the event from its start 12 years ago -- but a boost for Royal Oak and its downtown, city officials and merchants said.

In Royal Oak, the event likely will double in size from the estimated 225,000 in Pontiac this year, said Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson, founder of the festival that runs for four days each Labor Day weekend.

"You're going to enjoy this with 450,000 of your close, personal friends," Patterson told the crowd. Pontiac officials were "really crestfallen" to lose the event, he said, but were unrealistic in demanding $100,000 from the festival to host it in 2010.

The switch came after festival organizer Jon Witz couldn't reach a deal with financially strapped Pontiac and approached Royal Oak, said Pronto restaurant co-owner Jim Domanski.

"This will bring millions into our downtown. This will take one of our slowest weekends and, overnight, turn it into one of our busiest," Domanski said.

The Royal Oak Downtown Development Authority is paying $100,000 to land the deal, "but we'll get much more than that back," said Sangria restaurant owner Luigi Cutraro, a member of the DDA.

Besides boosting revenues at downtown businesses, the deal will bring at least $30,000 each to charities that will operate beverage tents, and it will give downtown Royal Oak publicity worth more than $1 million a year, Witz said.

Pontiac Emergency Financial Manager Fred Leeb, appointed by Gov. Jennifer Granholm in March to oversee finances, said in a statement Wednesday: "We'd like to find a new promoter to help us develop a comprehensive plan for year-around entertainment."

Contact BILL LAITNER: 586-826-7264 or blaitner@freepress.com