Ann Arbor Construction updates

[DetroitMan]

Ann Arbor giving up future roadway rights to make way for big development

Ann Arbor has agreed to give up future roadway rights along State Street and Eisenhower Parkway to help facilitate a new mixed-use development.

City Council voted unanimously and without discussion Monday night, April 15, to approve releasing the city’s right-of-way rights along the edges of property owned by Oxford Companies.

City staff support releasing the rights because further widening of State Street and Eisenhower Parkway there is no longer contemplated and it will allow development of the land, City Planner Alexis DiLeo told council in a memo. Oxford is teaming up with Ohio-based developer Crawford Hoying on a proposed 20-acre development including over 1,000 new housing units, a 150-room hotel and over 100,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space.

The city obtained rights in the 1970s to a 50-foot-wide strip of land along the western edge of property at 2845 S. State St. for possible future right-of-way needs, as well as a 27-foot-wide strip along the north side of Eisenhower, DiLeo said.

https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor...velopment.html

[DetroitMan]

5-story Ann Arbor housing development proposed next to former brewery

A new housing development is proposed to rise next to an old brewery building in Ann Arbor.

The newly unveiled plans call for new apartments at 1329 and 1333 Jones Drive, next to the former Northern Brewery.

The 1886 brewery building, later converted into a foundry and now offices, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and has been home in recent years to the Tech Brewery co-working space and nonprofit Avalon Housing. The new development now proposed next door is slated to rise on a vacant lot used by Avalon as an extra parking lot and the adjacent property where Arbor Springs Water Co., which used to deliver bottled water around town, closed in recent years. The old Arbor Springs website now redirects to Absopure, another Michigan-based bottled water company. The development proposal calls for demolishing the structures on the former Arbor Springs property at 1333 Jones Drive (also known as 1440 Plymouth Road) and rezoning the site from its current planned unit development or PUD zoning for water bottling facilities to R4E, a multi-family residential zoning.

https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor...r-brewery.html

[DetroitMan]

$62.4M in state loans to help bring 250 affordable housing units to Ann Arbor

A big affordable housing development in Ann Arbor is getting ready to break ground with a sizable funding boost from the state of Michigan.

The Michigan State Housing Development Authority approved loans for multiple affordable housing developments across the state at its April board meeting.

That includes loans totaling $62.4 million, including a $46.7 million construction loan, for the Union at A2, a project slated to rise at 2050 Commerce Drive between Maple Road and Stadium Boulevard on Ann Arbor’s west side. MSHDA describes it as a 250-unit development that will include 151 one-bedroom units, 68 two-bedroom units and 31 three-bedroom units for families with incomes ranging from 30% to 70% of the area median. Additionally, 26 units are designed to be accessible for people with disabilities.

The Annex Group, an Indianapolis-based developer, has been working on plans for the project with design firm BKV Group and local architect Brad Moore.

City Council approved incentives for the project in February 2023 so the development will be exempt from property taxes and instead pay an annual city fee of $1 per housing unit. The development site is the former corporate office location for Select Ride, a taxicab and limousine business that moved out several years ago. Plans have been in the works to redevelop the site for years, going back to a Chicago developer getting plans approved for 267 market-rate apartments in 2018.

The newer proposal from The Annex Group has been described as workforce housing, something Ann Arbor officials say is lacking in the city.

https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor...ann-arbor.html