BOOK TOWER

From Page 1

James Witherspoon, vice president of architecture and design for Bedrock, said the skylight is just one part of a broader restoration of the Louis Kamper-designed building’s architecture.

“A lot of the detailing and a lot of the classical details that were put into this project have been restored by the team here on-site,” Witherspoon said during the media tour.

Among them, the skylight, a clock not a single license had been issued. And then, when the rst license was issued, the board and the state agency su ered from chronically slow approvals. e backlog and massive pro t potential for the rst to market led to shady behavior, said Pollicella.

“People see dollar signs and they lose all sense of morals and ethics,” Pollicella said.

Pollicella said a client terminated her when she refused to facilitate a bribe to members of the Detroit City Council on a medical marijuana client’s behalf.

“A lot of people in this industry do unethical things, but I think there’s a lot of hubris involved if you don’t think you’re going to get caught,” Pollicella said.

As Crain’s researched the potential charges, several sources that spoke under the condition of anonymity feared their own business associates or clients could have turned up on the list of those being indicted. In fact, nearly a dozen di erent names were oated as those who could be indicted among sources.

It’s unclear if or when the feds will announce more corruption charges related to the industry, but the wrongdoing is already creating a stir among the Michigan Cannabis Regulatory Agency.

“As has been clearly seen in my rst six months on the job, we don’t take illegal activity lightly here at the CRA,” Brian Hanna, executive director of the CRA, told Crain’s in a statement. “We are currently reviewing the information that has been made available today and will begin investigations as warranted. Marijuana industry stakeholders in Michigan can be assured that if we nd that any businesses broke the law or rules, disciplinary action will be pursued.”

Pollicella and several other sourc-

Auto Shops

From Page 3 a total disregard for the community.”

Junkyards have to be 1,000 feet from parks and playgrounds, while tire storage or processing facilities must be 1,000 feet from residential areas.

Murphy said the new restrictions mean about two-thirds of existing junkyards and auto repair shops are now considered nonconforming across the board; about three-quarters of auto sales in the city are now considered legal but nonconforming.

Je rey cited one lot that had a makeshift wall made of trucks as an example of what some residents have to put up with.

“ is is what community folks are dealing with,” he said. “ ere’s so many bad actors, you have to address it in a strong-handed way. It’s happening like that all over the city.”

“I think there should be distance, for sure,” Williams said. “I don’t think there should be more intense zoning. It shouldn’t be so hard; it’s already hard enough.” es who did not want to comment on ursday’s charges said that while the elimination of the licensing board in 2019 likely slowed corruption at the state level, it’s all but picked up at the local municipality level, where companies also need licensing approval. e state requires a “competitive” scoring process for local municipalities to award marijuana licenses. is process has already spurred lawsuit after lawsuit in communities across the state, many alleging a corrupt process.

Reporter David Eggert contributed.

Contact: dwalsh@crain.com; (313) 446-6042; @dustinpwalsh with cherubs on it, and elevators.

For years, the skylight in the atrium had been blocked o from ground- oor viewing because the second and third oors had been inlled.

“If you came into this lobby a couple years ago, it’s just a single-story lobby, none of the grand detail, grand skyline that’s been prepared here today,” Witherspoon said.

Some of the skylight was no longer intact when Bedrock purchased the building, so some portions had to be recreated from things like old photographs and drawings. Some portions

She said that last summer the city counted 926 auto repair facilities, 374 car lots, 95 junkyards and 11 towing yards in the city limits.

“A lot of used car lots park on the sidewalk or street,” she said. “ ere are too many signs so buildings look bad.” ose are among locals’ complaints, she said; poor or nonexistent screening is also an issue.

And as more communities prioritize walkability, city planner Kimani Je rey said, there’s less appetite among neighbors for auto-related uses that are “not conducive” to a neighborhood feel.

He said the amount of car-related uses can be a burden to neighborhoods, particularly those that “have had to be taken apart, cleaned, shipped to New Jersey to a glass fabrication company and then shipped back and installed. e property is going to open in phases throughout the year. e apartments are a mix of studio, one- and two-bedroom units with 46 di erent oor plans, a news release from last month says. Twenty percent of the units are reserved for those making 80 percent of the Area Median Income, a gure that is fraught in Detroit because its calculation includes the suburbs and skews the affordability gure upward.

As such, nes have been increased as well. A violation for a rst o ense is going from $100 to $250, Murphy said, while a third o ense went from $700 to $1,000. An unlawful change of use that used to garner a $750 ne will now cost $2,500 for a rst o ense; a third o ense (and all subsequent ones) will go from $1,500 to $7,500.

Je rey said he expects the city’s Buildings, Safety Engineering and Environmental Department to be much more aggressive in shutting businesses down when they don’t follow the rules.

“If you think it’s a blighting in uence, you don’t want a whole lot in one neighborhood,” Murphy said. “You want to spread them out.”

Robert Williams, the owner of Wright Choice Auto Sales on East Warren Avenue in Detroit, said he doesn’t mind some more rules. But he doesn’t think the city should make operating a business any more di cult.

Crain’s has inquired about the market-rate unit rents.

Restoration work on the Italian Renaissance-style Book Tower, which opened in 1926, is being done by Brinker-Christman, a joint venture between Lansing-based e Christman Co. and Detroit-based Brinker Group; plus Detroit-based Kraemer Design Group on historic preservation and New York City-based architecture rm ODA on architecture and interior renovation.

When $618.1 million in tax incentives was approved for the Book Tower/Book Building project and three

Williams said he’s owned his business for eight years. He hasn’t had any complaints from neighbors in that time, he said, adding that two popular restaurants next to each other would have full parking lots as well.

Murphy said there have been issues with auto-related blight for 15 years — “as long as I’ve been with the city.”

Bolger said Detroit’s history as the Motor City — where car ownership was a religion — likely contributed to the high number of automotive uses. Many gas stations became repair shops, he said, and it was an easy entry point for a new business. And aging businesses likely need even more attention.

There was so much agreement about the need to make changes to Detroit’s car-related uses that the effort moved ahead of other zoning-related discussions, Jeffrey said.

“If anything was unanimous, this was probably the one unanimous issue,” Je rey said. “It was more dire.”

Contact: arielle.kass@crain.com; (313) 446-6774; @ArielleKassCDB other new construction e orts totaling $2.14 billion in May 2018, the Book Tower/Book Building restoration was expected to cost $313 million. e other three projects are the under-construction development on the former site of the J.L. Hudson’s department store, the completed addition to One Campus Martius and the Monroe Blocks project, recently revealed to have an updated plan and name.

Contact: kpinho@crain.com; (313) 446-0412; @kirkpinhoCDB

Grand Rapids Mayor Rosalynn Bliss said in a recent media brie ng with Housing Next — a group working to close the housing gap — that the city will need the cooperation of the many Kent County suburbs that have golf courses available to redevelop, because the city has no land bank authority and very little available property left to develop.

“It’s (about) how do we get more creative,” she said.

Following are some of the biggest golf course property conversions underway in West Michigan:

Alpine Township, Kent County

Developer Mike Houseman, president of Wolverine North America, and three silent partners in fall 2019 acquired the property that formerly housed Alpine Avenue Golf Center, at 841 and 1007 Alpine Church Road NW, and several surrounding parcels in Alpine Township.

e driving range and miniature golf venue closed in 2015. Houseman said he planned to start redeveloping the property into housing right after acquiring it but was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since the initial acquisition, the partners also bought an adjacent orchard, a house to the north and the township’s former 1950s-era re station at Alpine Avenue and Alpine Church Road to enlarge the development.

e current plan is for 119-unit age-restricted senior apartments that will be owned and operated by Clover Group, 73 single-family units that will be built and sold by JTB Homes, 26 condos and 28 townhomes. ere will also be 10 commercial parcels along Alpine Avenue.

Houseman estimates the construction budget will be about $79.2 million, including site infrastructure costs.

e Alpine Township Planning Commission at its December meeting approved Houseman’s request to rezone the site to mixed-used planned unit development. Later that month, the township board approved the preliminary site plan for the condos and the infrastructure plan for the commercial portion. Houseman said he will seek nal site plan approval for the senior apartments within the next 30 days.

Demolition of the buildings on the site is complete, and Houseman said he hopes to start construction on the apartments by July.

“We’ve been grading as much as we can between weather events, and we hope to have the roads completed by the end of summer,” he said.

He projects the residential component of the project will take about ve to six years, and the commercial component about three years.

“I’ve done other developments, but this is at a higher scale,” he said.

Meanwhile, also in Alpine Township, developers Dale Kraker and Howie Hehrer of JTB Homes and Interra Homes closed on the purchase of half of Gracewil Country Club at 2597 Four Mile Road NW from owner John Wilson last summer for an undisclosed sum. ey are under contract to buy the remaining half of the golf course within the next year or two.

“ ey no longer wanted to continue operating, and it was ready for … housing development,” Hehrer said.

e 206-acre, 36-hole golf course was built in 1929 and will remain open for all of 2023 and on a year-by- year basis after that as the multiphase housing project progresses.

Pending approval of their latest site plan and rezoning request by the township on April 17, their aim is to convert the golf course into 538 units of housing, including 317 single-family lots, 70 villas for the general market and 151 units of senior housing.

If all goes well, Hehrer said site work is likely to start as soon as early next year, with construction beginning in earnest by 2025. ey expect the project will take about 20 years to complete across several phases.

Cannon Township, Kent County

irteen miles east, just outside of Rockford, Kraker has another golf course redevelopment underway.

He acquired the former Silver Lake Country Club, at 7901 Greenbrier Drive NE in Cannon Township, for just less than $1 million in March 2020 after the former owner, om Rosely, closed it in 2019.

Kraker initially oated the idea of building 450 units of condos, apartments and senior living housing, but then Kent County approached him with a request to buy 137 acres of the 174.4-acre golf course for a planned county park.

His new plan is to build the Villages of Silver Lake — 48 single-family homes with two lots reserved for future use on the 37.4 acres of which he retained ownership.

Kraker said he pivoted to the single-family plan for the smaller acreage because there are already condos and single-family housing on the other side of the golf course by a di erent developer, Silver Lake Estates and Silver Lake Condominiums, and single family seemed to match market demand.

e Cannon Township board voted in August to grant PUD rezoning approval. Kraker’s next step is to submit the engineering drawings to the township for approval.

e estimated project cost and timeline will “come later down the line,” he said, after he’s secured all necessary approvals.

Kraker said he expects the homes will be priced at $400,000 and above.

Courtland Township, Kent County

2018 and acquired the 100-acre former Braeside Golf Club at 5460 11 Mile Road in Courtland Township from a previous developer whose plans for housing there didn’t pan out.

ey then launched construction on a single-family community called Braeside Estates.

Since 2018, Wurn’s home construction business that he founded with partner Bill Roersma — Roersma & Wurn — has completed the rst phase of the development and part of the second. An additional 100 acres adjacent to the golf course property came up for sale when their project was already underway, so they acquired it and added a third phase to the project. Phase one, which kicked o in 2018, included 26 lots. Phase two, which will include 24 lots and began construction in 2021, is about 30 percent done and scheduled to wrap in 2025.

Depending on the economic conditions of the next few years, Wurn said phase three, which will include 42-48 lots, could take an additional three-and-a-half years to complete. e homes are priced anywhere from $500,000 to $800,000 apiece, he said.

Wurn said the project appealed to the partners because Roersma & Wurn’s housing communities have typically done well in the Rockford area.

“A golf course is typically quite beautiful, and they’re rolling (hills), and it provides for walkout basements. It was also something that could be engineered in such a way that people had a lot of breathing room — the lots are spacious,” he said. “… We just think it’s one of the very best projects available in Rockford, Michigan, right now.”

Walker, Kent County

English Hills Country Club at 1200 Four Mile Road NW in Walker closed in 2020. Developer Mark Avis, of Illinois-based Redhawk Multifamily LLC, in partnership with Scott Sorenson of Domo Development in Ada, closed on the purchase of the 142acre golf course property for $4.4 million in February, according to city property tax records.

Together with an adjoining property at 1470 Four Mile Road NW, which they purchased from Kim Sorrelle as part of the same deal, Redhawk plans to build English Hills, a e project will include a clubhouse and 250 luxury one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments with rents ranging from $1,800 to $2,575. Construction on the multifamily component began in January and is expected to wrap in two years. Pre-leasing will begin the rst week in July, with the rst building open for occupancy at the end of September, Rodriguez said. e clubhouse will include a tness studio, resident lounge, business center, terrace, outdoor dining with barbecue grills, walking trails surrounding a pond, a wetlands area and dog park.

552-unit rental townhomes development that they rst proposed in 2021. At the time, Avis estimated rents would range from $1,400 to $1,500 a month, but with rising construction costs he doesn’t have a current estimate.

Avis said he hopes to break ground on the project by the end of the year. He described it as one of “the best developments” he’s ever planned.

“It’s just a beautiful, beautiful piece of property, and we love the location, love Walker. We just thought we could create something really special,” he said.

Also in Walker, Anthony Rodriguez and Rick Cavenaugh of Barrington, Ill.-based Stoneleigh Cos., are building Savannah at Waterford Village at the former Lincoln Country Club at 3485 Lake Michigan Drive NW, which closed in 2021.

Stoneleigh also received zoning approval for ve commercial lots and 68 lots of single-family housing onsite. Rodriguez said the lots are listed for sale, and if he “had to guess,” those home values will ultimately be priced somewhere between $350,000 and $450,000 once built.

Rodriguez said the 36-acre site was “highly attractive” for a mixed-use development because it’s a “walkable community.”

“ e site has great access o Lake Michigan Drive NW, a major arterial road with convenience to downtown Grand Rapids (10 minutes),” he said in an email to Crain’s.

Wyoming, Kent County

Avis, with Redhawk Multifamily, also is planning to develop housing at e Pines Golf Course, which is still operational at 5050 Byron Center Ave. SW and 2180 52nd St. SW in Wyoming.

He said he is under contract to buy the 114-acre property, which includes multiple parcels, from Michael Boogaard by the end of the year.

“ e owners approached me — it was not for sale, it was o the market — and they asked if I would consider developing if they wanted to sell it, and it is just (a) phenomenal location and a beautiful, beautiful property,” he said.

e plan consists of 7,500 square feet of retail, 22,000 square feet of o ce space and 604 units of market-rate housing split between condos, lofts and townhomes.

Avis said this project — which doesn’t yet have a name — likely won’t break ground until the end of 2024 and will take three to ve years to build out.

Other Michigan golf course projects

Kent County isn’t the only place golf courses are being tagged for redevelopment as housing.

In Oakland County, SE Metro Property Services submitted a proposal in June to convert Coyote Golf Club in Lyon Township into housing. However, according to Planning Department Coordinator Katherine Des Rochers, the developer recently withdrew the request, and township is in talks with another interested developer, though nothing has been formalized.

Also in Lyon Township, a conceptual plan to put 182 single-family homes on the 160-acre Cattails Golf Club site was presented to the township board in January, Hometown Life reported.

Fruitport Golf Club in Muskegon County closed in 2021, and developer Denny Cherette of the Cherette Group broke ground on a housing development there in January 2022. When completed, it will include 217 high-end apartments. Tenants began moving into the rst completed buildings in January, according to the development’s Facebook page.

In Ottawa County, Shayne Malone of Malone Development in November received approval for an apartment complex at 367 Country Club Road, on the site of the Holland Country Club that closed in 2009. e most up-to-date version of the site plan, amended in February, includes 108 apartments.

Contact: rachel.watson@crain.com (989) 533-9685; @RachelWatson86