For those who were disheartened by the news this past February that the building housing their favorite childhood institution was getting the wrecking ball — you can rest a little easier.
Marvin’s Marvelous Mechanical Museum has finally found a new home. The arcade and museum will be relocating about five minutes north of its current location to West Bloomfield, the business announced Monday.
It will relocate to 6421 Orchard Lake Road, which once housed Sav-On Efros Drugs. The new location will be inside the Orchard Mall plaza on the northeast corner of Maple and Orchard Lake roads, next to a Planet Fitness and near Shangri-La.
Its last day at its Hunter’s Square location will be Jan 5, 2025, and owner Jeremy Yagoda says the business will “take a couple days to relax” before the move. He’s not quite sure when construction will be complete at the new location and has not yet announced a date for the reopening.
The new building will be 14,000 square feet — nearly triple the size of its current 5,300-square-foot space in Hunter’s Square on 14 Mile and Orchard Lake, which it has occupied since 1990.
The business plans to take advantage of the new space with private party rooms for birthday parties and a more spread-out setup, Yagoda tells Hour Detroit. He adds that the buildout will be as faithful as possible to the current “sensory overload” that visitors are used to.
“We are going to replicate it as well as we can,” Yagoda says. “Unfortunately, I don’t have ceilings as high as I do at the current location, because you can never find ceilings as high as we have in the back corner. They’re almost 40 feet. So, you know, some stuff is going to be a little bit different.”
Additionally, Yagoda hopes to add more games, and may even revive an old animatronic Chuck E Cheese show that hasn’t been operational at Marvin’s since the late ’90s, due to its reel-to-reel technology deteriorating, he says.
“I was actually just contacted by a group that’s very well known for restoring the old animatronic shows, and they really want to help me get our old show running again,” he says. “There’s groups out there who are passionate about these shows…and they’ve digitized everything. So they really want to help us get our show up to date on a modern system where it can run again.”
In February, Farmington Hills’ city council unanimously voted “yes” on a partial redevelopment of the Hunter’s Square Shopping Center to make way for a new Meijer grocery store, which included the demolition of the building where Marvin’s is located.
After the possibility of demolition was first proposed in October 2023, a change.org petition called Save Marvin’s Marvelous Mechanical Museum garnered over 50,000 signatures, and many attended a Farmington Hills Planning Commission meeting to voice their opposition to the idea.
“It touched my heart,” Yagoda says. “It’s just so marvelous to see how many people the place has touched and have the passion for it, and how many people were excited for us to keep going on. They were sad to see us having to close, but they’re excited for the next chapter.”
Additionally, in a statement posted to Facebook yesterday, he said, “…let’s put one thing to bed, Im getting lots of messages from people saying nasty things about our landlords and the city of Farmington Hills. Farmington Hills has been AMAZING to us for over 40 years! A city can’t tell a property owner what businesses they have to rent to if the use falls into the zoning. The owners have some big plans for the property which are going to be good for the city… Progress is a good thing but it’s not always good for everyone!”
The business was founded in the early 1980s by his father, pharmacist Marvin Yagoda, who passed away in 2017. It’s known for an extensive collection of pinball machines, arcade games, coin-operated animatronics, and various novelty oddities.
“‘If you set your mind to something, don’t just dream about it — do it,’ is something my dad always said,” Yagoda says. “I knew that I would be able to move it somewhere. I took a lot of time find what I felt was the best space for us, and I’m gonna do everything I can to replicate as much as I can and add more and make it more exciting. Retirement was never an option. I enjoy what I do far too much.”
|
|
|
