City Set To Bid For 'Troy Town Center' Developer

TROY, MI. — Troy’s massive “Town Center” project will take a large move forward next month when the city solicits for a master developer via a request for qualifications. The mixed use development would feature parks, a community square, up to 850 residential units and 180,000 square feet of retail/commercial space on a 125-acre site near Big Beaver Road and I-75.

Last fall, Troy’s city council and planning commission gave a draft master plan for the project an informal approval. Since then, plans have been presented to national developers in New York City and locally at a Troy Chamber of Commerce meeting, mostly gaining positive reactions.

A hotel, a revitalized city hall, community center, courthouse, library, a five-acre lake and nearly 60 acres of parks are all parts of the plans. Troy is looking for a private developer to invest about $330 million. For its part, the city itself would invest about $53 million in the form of infrastructure improvements.

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Gibbs Planning Group of Birmingham is working with the city to design the project. The firm is working with other nearby communities like Beverly Hills and Warren on what is dubbed “New Urban” style development.

“It’s a form of creating new towns or renovating historic cities. It’s totally based on old pre-war ways of planning,” said firm owner Robert Gibbs. “It was a way of putting in civic buildings to make beautiful downtowns, with very formal types of plans.”

“Everyone has been in support of it. The No. 1 comment I get is ‘I’d like to live there.’ It’s a really appealing residential setting with the retail and square,” Troy City Manager Brian Kischnick said.

For more, got to the Detroit News.

File photos