Troy’s Big Beaver corridor is known for its sparkling office buildings, luxury shopping and restaurants galore.
But what about two miles north?
At the northwest corner of Long Lake and Crooks roads, Bloomfield Hills-based developer Kojaian Management Corp. is mulling the fate of a little over 24 acres of land it purchased from Kelley Services a few years ago.
Calling the large property the “gateway to north Troy,” Tony Antone, executive vice president of the company run by developer C. Michael Kojaian, said it’s a bit too soon to tell what ultimately ends up on the property, but Kojaian is moving forward through the entitlement process in Troy to get the site shovel-ready.
The developer was before the Planning Commission earlier this month to discuss what Kojaian Management ultimately hopes is a PUD, or planned unit development overlay, to be put in place for the site.
Antone said the company is hoping for approval in spring, although any construction is quite some time off.
“This is a long range plan,” Antone said. “Anyone that we’ve talked to about the site has been intrigued, but we’re not zoned for what they want yet. So they’re like, ‘Yeah, it’s kind of early, so let’s look at it when you get your entitlements.’ So it’s a little bit of a chicken and egg situation, but the city seems amenable to doing something special on this acreage, and we’ve done a lot of stuff in Troy, so we know the city and staff, what they like and don’t like.”
The plans have been in the works for more than a year and have been covered by the Troy Times, a publication of Warren-based C & G Publishing.
Kojaian, through affiliated entity Long Lake Crooks Development Associates LLC, ended up with the land following a May 2019 purchase from an affiliate of Troy-based Kelly Services Inc. for $12 million, according to city staff and land records.
The property, which has never been developed, is flanked by hotel space as well as prime office buildings, including the Troy Corporate Center, the Flagstar Bank building, North Troy Corporate Park and Troy Tower.
Some of the property that abuts the site is owned by Kojaian Management.
Concepts for the 24 or so acres abound, though, to be sure, ranging from hotel and apartment uses coupled with a large, 500,000-square-foot office building as a corporate headquarters.
The fact that we’re still in the middle of a global pandemic and the hotel and office sectors have been battered for the last two years — in a conversation with Antone, I called it a “bloodbath” — isn’t lost on Antone, but he’s confident that eventually the uses will bear out, noting that the company wouldn’t build anything on the site without a user lined up.
“Planning a piece like this, it’s not a tomorrow thing,” Antone said. “It takes time and we believe that it’s going to be prime for when the market does rebound. And yes, there’s a bloodbath going on in some of these sectors. But we’re already starting to see activity that folks are planning for post COVID.”
Regardless of what shakes out, Kojaian has a large chunk of land in a key suburban location to play with.
“There’s just so few parcels left like this that are fun to imagine and engage the professionals to help you kind of figure out, but it’s in the early stages,” Antone said.