I see that 9 & 10 news did a piece on the bowling alley scheme.

https://www.9and10news.com/2018/09/04/new-development-plan-to-expan...

During the interview they said that each building will have 30 apartments  on the upper floors.

They also said that the buildings will have between 2-4 floors.

Huh??? 

Are they planning a 4 story building with 10 units on each floor?

Or are they now planning a 2 story building with 30 apartments on a single upper floor?

Sounds kinda motel'ish.

Does anyone know wtf is going on?

Are they scratching out the plans on the back of bar napkins as they go?

Is this shit acceptable to the planning commission?

And they said there will be over 100 parking spaces?

Can they prove this by providing plans?

How about interim city manager Steve Brock, is this how you operated in Farmington Hills.?
Or is John Shay still pulling your strings.

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The ONLY WAY a Citizen can get approval from a planning comm. and get a building permit is to submit an architectural plan that is the final drawing for approval, and it can't be changed later without special variances approved. Brock probably hasn't been around long enough to have viewed all the details, just guessing on that. But how come Neal and Wilson still haven't given their final plan, esp. after some 3 years wasted on this project? It's supposed to be getting built now finally, and all was approved by city council. If they are still waffling about the final plan, it's getting silly now, and should be cancelled. I know it would be if it were you or I in that seat now. Thanks for the update shinblind.

With Schultz as the contractor , I hope the city building inspector reviewed the inside structure of the buildings being torn down for asbestos . We don't need another contamination site like they [Schultz } did on south james contaminating the whole neighborhood with asbestos.

Great point, stump.  It would sure be transparent of the City to explain and show how they are mitigating the ground contaminants in that area, and that they are being diligent in their demolition this time, as the structure {the old Napa Building, Maker's Market} was built in 1935 and may have tiles within that require special attention due to the asbestos issue.  

Shinblind,

At the 55 second mark of the video they show an overhead view of the block.  If you count the parking spaces within the block, there is 100.  According to the minutes of the August 13 meeting, 30 of these 100 spaces are on the street and open to the public.  The photo unveiled then was a bit different.  Those will be the ones that come into view first in the video, and are located on Robert Street.

The Planning Commission has been conspicuously absent throughout the lifetime of this project, which seems to change at a whim and has not the usual oversight and interference that most of us would experience from the City and the PC that other developments get, like the Bogner project on North Washington and the new Depot project on South Madison.  That's what happens in a corrupt system, when Wilson, Neal and their foil Jacobson make our city officials look like the dumbest rubes for falling all over themselves over this project, yet they follow the usual rules for other projects.  I find it highly likely that Brock set up this photo op with TV 9&10 by direction of others who are vested in its success.

The whole project is starting to smell.

It is like lets line up the taxpayers money for two 4 story buildings on weak subsoil so their will be higher building costs, then lets relocate them where it will be cheaper to construct and turn one of them into a 2 story building instead of a 4 story.

The planning commission will go along with what ever they are told.

And the additional money that is freed up by lowering the construction costs? Returned to the taxpayers? Hah!!! No doubt instead lining someone's nest egg.

I agree. This project is beginning to fail the smell test. As far as bringing people downtown, the only people it will bring are the new tenants. There is no indication of what kinds of businesses will quilify for inclusion at the project. Usually by now new projects like these in other desirable towns have most of the commercial spaces already leased.

As for the murals, they are an eyesore and need to go. Who would want to save the existing murals. Especially these murals that would fit right in with the Detroit style motif.

Also, seems to me there was a creek or stream running under Rath Ave. many years ago. This alone, even covered up now, would make building tall bldgs. a challenge for driving very deep steel/cement reinforced foundation supports to make it work architecturally. It could change the entire scope of permitted work of the entire project, and soar costs to double or triple the current plans. Wonder if the tax credits sold already now would cover that? Sounds like they barely have enough now to go forward.

I don't know about a stream running under Rath Ave. Aquaman but I know from researching old maps that the area around Court Street between Rath and William was listed as marshland on old city maps. The drainage for the marsh ran towards PM lake in the vicinity of the crotch between Ludington Municipal Marina and Harbor View Marina.

It was supposedly filled in with sawdust from the old lumber industry and who knows what else then capped off with sand. 

To give you an indication if you look up a satellite image of West Loomis between Rath and William you will see numerous cracks in the pavement that have been tarred over down through the years showing the instability of the land under the street.

I believe that is part of the reason that they are relocating the one building from Ludington Avenue and Robert to Rath and Loomis as the land is elevated and more stable thus being less expensive to construct a building upon it.

I believe that when they constructed the former Best Choice Market/ Biercamp  Market (soon closed for winter?) they used helical piers which are like giant screws for the foundation and it took more of them when than what was originally planned because of the unstable soil. So moving the building makes more sense as the building costs would be lower. Which wouldn't be a problem except when using taxpayer money the savings are never returned to the taxpayer but seem to evaporate into some mythical land of unicorns and lining someone's pocket.

Indeed you have to ask yourself or more properly the city council and planning commission as to why a building was even considered to be build the unstable ground ? The only answer is that it would make it easier to sell to the public while the intentions all along would be to build on more stable ground. Selling the public on making a 100+ private parking lot facing Ludington Avenue would have been a harder sell.

Exactly shinblind, that's a very important ingredient in Any land development by the builders before they even consider building on any plat. Subsoil samples MUST BE taken first, not lastly. If Neal and Wilson are so darm smart, and financially rich, they should have at least been advised to investigate this years ago if they don't have the smarts themselves, and obviously, they just don't! Hell, this was on an episode of Dallas many years ago when Ray Krebbs went into a development without the sidekick of Punk Anderson for a development on his own, and his costs also soared to triple, and he had to sell out the deal in the end for a loss.

I personally hope it's a Dallas rerun. Too much congestion, not enough parking downtown already. And I hope the losses are even bigger to help to level the playing field of any pretending or non pretending rich braggarts, mostly because they are squeezing the city and the citizens for their own profit.

After reading through the latest posting , I seem to remember that Wesco was built on a floating slab of concrete with large cables imbedded in it.  I also recall that the fuel tanks had cables tying them down to  large amounts of concrete so they wouldn't pop out of the ground.  Yep swamp land it was and still is underneath the surface.

And with the flooding of the maritime museum because the storm pipe was too small, and the lake levels rising. Sounds like a natural drainage area has been messed with too much.. Now they want to put more concrete at the west end and overdevelop the natural usage and beauty . Our storm sewers and sanitary sewers are already taxed. The water has to go somewhere. Mother nature may raise her angry head. They should put more green space and parking rather than federally subsidized housing. We should enjoy a city engineer rather than a "development" director.

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