The field on Nixon Road where a 234-unit apartment complex is proposed.
Ryan J. Stanton | AnnArbor.com
Birmingham-based Bleznak Real Estate Investment Group submitted its rezoning request and site plan to the City of Ann Arbor last week, after hosting a citizen participation meeting for the project in June.
A map of the site location provided by the developer.
This site layout by Midwestern Consulting was on display at the Woodbury Club Apartments citizen participation meeting in June. The developers have since removed the two buildings on the northeast corner of the site from the plans.
Ryan J. Stanton | AnnArbor.com
Since the public meeting, the real estate firm amended its Woodbury Club Apartments project to reduce the total number of units and removed two of the five apartment buildings from the site.
Bleznak Real Estate’s Adam Bleznak said the 60 units removed from the plans could be proposed as a second phase of the project in the future.
“The two buildings that were in the northeast corner (of the site), we are not planning for approval on those,” he said. “Those are potentially something we’ll continue in the future.”
"We felt the project we wanted to take on and what would be appropriate at this time would be to go forward with the (234 units)," he continued.
The project is proposed for a vacant 54-acre site on the southeast corner of Nixon and M-14 in Ann Arbor Township, near the Barclay Park condominiums and Windemere Park apartments. The property was used as a farm for many decades, but project officials said it hasn't been farmed in two years now.
Township records show Bleznak Real Estate purchased the 53-acre site from Don Nixon and his sister, Betty Nixon, for $1.3 million in December. The project requires a property annexation from the township to the city of Ann Arbor, and the developer is asking the city to zone the site R4A residential.
At a citizen participation meeting held in June, neighbors of the site expressed concern about adding more traffic to an already congested area.
About two dozen residents attended the meeting, and traffic repeatedly came up as a main concern with the project. Attendees were particularly worried about worsening traffic backups where Nixon Road meets Green and Dhu Varren roads. (Read more about the meeting.)
The Woodbury Club Apartments on Nixon Road would be an extension of Bleznak Real Estate's Woodbury Garden Apartments — an apartment complex off South Industrial Highway that the company developed in the late 1960s.
“We’ll just be trying to continue the legacy of the Woodbury Garden Apartments, and hopefully we’ll be able to continue the brand (at the new project),” Bleznak said.
Scott Betzoldt of Midwestern Consulting, the civil engineer for the Nixon Road project, said tentative plans call for one-, two- and three-bedroom units, ranging in price from $1,100 to $2,000 a month. He said the apartments will probably attract young professionals and empty nesters.
The project will go before Ann Arbor's Planning Commission and then City Council for approval in coming weeks.
Lizzy Alfs is a business reporter for AnnArbor.com. Reach her at 734-623-2584 or email her at lizzyalfs@annarbor.com. Follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/lizzyalfs.