Former bakery comes back to life to service unemployed
Developer Bashra Imam is turning the former Oaza Bakery on the northend Jos. Campau into an office building that will host a job resource company.
By Charles Sercombe
Where once bakers rolled the dough, job seekers will soon be rolling in the dough.
Well, hopefully they will all get good-paying jobs.
The former Oaza Bakery, a longtime Hamtramck landmark on the northend of Jos. Campau, is being gutted and transformed into a job referral service for the unemployed.
Developer Bashar Imam is under a tight deadline to get the project completed within the next week. He is turning this 10,000 square-foot space into office space.
Once unveiled, you will see a new façade that does away with most of the brick that closed the building up and replaced with large modern windows – just what the city’s zoning law requires.
“It’s going to be stunning,” said Imam of the finished development.
From rolling the dough to rolling in the dough. The former Oaza Bakery is about to be reborn.
So what exactly will go on here?
Jamal Saleh, the President and CEO of The Resource Center, said he has a contract with the Michigan Works agency to help unemployed folks registered with the Department of Human Services to brush up their resumes and match them with employers.
With the state’s new Department of Human Services building just down the street, it’s a good match.
“Hamtramck is in the center of our service area, and it’s a safe area,” Saleh said.
He said his company will have 26-30 employees operating out of the location. He said his company is also purchasing the former 18th Street Deli building across the street from the new location.
Down the road, Saleh said he might expand his service to include vocational training.
3 Responses to Former bakery comes back to life to service unemployed
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Patrick Cunningham
November 9, 2020 at 7:59 pm
What you are now doing for your community is more than beautiful. God bless you sir. I once worked with Ray Poplawski at Town and County Delicatessen in the Bella Vista Mall in Grand Blanc Michigan. Ray sold the businesses to my father in the mid 70’s
He and his father Zigman developed a sandwich called the “Zigray” it has corned beef, ham on the BEST onion roll I ever had!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Do you still the recipe?
God bless your work and God bless that onion!!
Kindest regards
Patrick Cunningham
Becky Van Vleet
February 27, 2022 at 6:47 pm
My grandfather, Taras Troyan, Ukrainian, owned this bakery in the 1920’s. I’m wondering if he was the first? I’m not sure. But he lost it during the depression and moved his Slavic family to California in 1931. My father, Walter Troyan, and I drove to Hamtramck in 1986 to see his childhood home. During this visit, he took me to see his father’s bakery. I took a picture of it and I still have the picture. Thank you for preserving this very old building that has some history and using it for a good cause.
Troy Reasonover
October 12, 2024 at 3:37 pm
I use going to Oaza Bakery, on one will be the bake goods and the other sideHamtramck Kolaskia deli meat and sausage, when I was a child and then as an adult, it said they are closed forever. as my grandparents they love last Oaza Near Holbrook, what can I say Polish on side of my family