Meijer & The Village

Feb. 17, 2008

After years of lawsuits and literally millions of dollars given up to lawyers, the anti-climactic news is that Acme Township, the developers, a citizens’ group, and Meijer are pretty much back to square one.
The lawsuits have gone on for so long, punctuated by insults, vandalism, and potential criminal wrong-doing, that it’s easy to lose track over the original issue, which is a proposal to build a Meijer and mixed-use/lifestyle center in a field on M-72 south of the Grand Traverse Resort.
The project is massive and will assuredly change the face of tiny Acme and even the region. Opponents say it’s way too big, but developers say it has to be that way to entice well-heeled tourists from around the state.
A state Court of Appeal’s decision in September gave the green light for the Village at Grand Traverse by saying its special use permit must be reinstated. It also said the township still retains authority for a site review. Translation: the push/pull will continue.
Yet the good news is the lawsuits have stopped--at least for now. All sides agreed to drop their appeal to the state Supreme Court, but there are mixed messages about what will happen with the lawsuits filed against several township planning commissioners and board members.
Meijer has completely dropped those lawsuits, and the Village announced it will no longer pursue them (they charged conflict of interest and involved the seizure of personal computers and a threat of monetary damages against township officials).
Yet legal paperwork filed recently by the Village reserves its right to re-file lawsuits against the officials and township in the future.

LET’S GET ALONG...
All that aside, the two sides recently expressed an urgency to get along. They joined forces to ask the Traverse City school board to keep the Bertha Vos Elementary School open. They offered up the Village as proof that they can put kids into seats.
Yet the school board refused last week to reconsider its decision.
Village developer Jim Goss, a former Traverse City football player and retired beverage salesman, said he is sorry for the pain that the conflict of interest lawsuits caused the township officials. He is trying to make peace with the township board, often stopping by the township hall to chat.
Said Township Supervisor Wayne Kladder: “This has torn the community apart, but, in the end, we’re all neighbors.”
The words you hear from both are healing, but the two sides are still worlds apart.
If the developers go forward with the conceptual site plan, Acme will end up with what the developers proposed all along—a lifestyle center with a 210,000 square-foot Meijer as its anchor store, and what’s called mixed use (more on that below).
These lifestyle centers—high-end, inside-out malls—are exploding around the country. There are now about 160 such malls, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers.
If you’ve never heard of a lifestyle center, it’s an outdoor mall with a “sense of place.” There are different versions, but a true lifestyle center has upscale shops like Ann Taylor and Williams-Sonoma.
They’re easier on the eye than indoor malls with tree-lined streets, sidewalks, flowing fountains, and natural sunshine. The Village at Grand Traverse would have an “Up North” sense of place with a parking lot inside of a horseshoe of shops. That makes it easier for shoppers to park close to their desired store, but critics say it’s not the walkable kind of town described in the master plan.

A MATTER OF TRUST
Critics of the Village complain that it’s all about shopping and not much about neighborhoods. But Goss said the 182-acre site includes housing for all income levels, a 250-unit hotel, a TART trail, a soccer field, a library, a place for the township hall, possibly a school, and a clock tower. The heart of the lifestyle center will feature an “esplanade,” a two-acre plaza with a fountain and places to sit.
Despite ample parking, Goss insists the lifestyle center is indeed walkable, thanks to sidewalks and bike paths.
Bzdok, the township attorney, is deeply skeptical. He questions whether the developers will really put the time and money into the aspects of the plan that don’t involve retail sales. “They put housing in the plan because they read that’s what they’re supposed to do. You can read in the minutes of public meetings that they plan to spin the properties off to somebody else.”
Responds Goss: “When people say we’re never going to do that, why would we dedicate 40 percent of the property for that? We’re absolutely going to build the residential. They get on our case because we stand up and say, we’re not residential guys. But right in our site unit plan, we agreed to bring in a new urbanist who specializes in residential to design it.”
But the question of size remains and the effect it will have on the region.
“Their own traffic study projected an additional 27,880 people traveling per day on M-72,” Bzdok said. “How is that a town center? How is that smart growth? A regional mall that’s in a sea of asphalt and expands M-72, add four new turn lanes, adds more traffic lights and is wall-to-wall stores? They’re projected to have a level of traffic equal to South Airport during rush hour.
“If you’ve been to the lifestyle center in Lansing, you’ll see it’s got asphalt and traffic lights everywhere; it’s automobile-dependent. You can’t walk to the place or bike to the place. The whole idea of the town center was to reduce the necessity for an auto.”
Bzdok and others fear that the township center will explode quiet Lautner Road into a thoroughfare.

ANOTHER “VILLAGE”
If you think this is simply an issue for Acme, population 4,500, think again.
The square footage that’s proposed—nearly 1.4 million square feet of retail, residential, hotel and mixed use—could shake up the entire region. The retail space alone is 775,000 square feet. Mixed use is another 225,000 square feet (all or part of it could be retail). That’s a total of one million square feet—about the combined size of Grand Traverse Crossings and the Grand Traverse Mall (1,035,000 square feet).
Township officials say they will scrutinize the Village’s marketing studies to ensure that shoppers can support the new stores. Goss said market demand will set the pace and there’s no need to worry. It might take 20 years to build out the entire 1.4 million square feet, he said.
The first phase only calls for an anchor store like Meijer, the construction of Main Street and a few other streets, landscaping, and infrastructure. The next phase will include a couple of restaurants along M-72, 30 to 40 shops along Main Street, and new homes—all market-driven, of course.
So here’s a recap of what else is on tap for Northern Michigan:
There’s the Village of Grand Traverse Commons 10 miles away from Acme. Developer Ray Minervini has a long-term plan to create one million square feet of residential, hotel, office and retail space.
There’s Bate’s Crossing, a 271,000 square foot retail center planned in Acme. There’s approval to build a 300,000 square-foot Meijer in Acme on Lautner Commons (see sidebar).
Then there are the two proposed projects in downtown Traverse City by Federated Properties—two multi-story buildings with shops, retail and condos. And let’s not forget Petoskey Pointe. (Okay, granted, these aren’t exactly progressing.)
There are also Meijer stores in the works for Petoskey and Gaylord.
The wild card in the deck is the Turtle Creek Casino, owned by the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians. Once it’s placed into trust status, it won’t be subject to local zoning.
So here’s the big question: How will the lifestyle mall survive the winter months, when Petoskey, Suttons Bay and Traverse City shops can barely hang on?
Goss said that it’s all about synergy. The multitude of high-end shops all in one place, the new luxury hotel, the busloads of tourists to the casino, the Grand Traverse Resort and the already busy traffic on M-72. Economically, this is the way to go, and citizens have to understand that they are only one part of the equation, the market and banks the other.

GRACE AND CIVILITY?
Lanny Johnson, a retired doctor, tried to build the ideal town center for Acme in the 1990s—walkable paths, a TART trail, 70 percent open space, and classy architecture. But the market just wasn’t there for his standards.
Johnson doesn’t think much will happen soon. And that’s because Acme is double-minded—some believe in no growth, while others believe in any kind of growth. The debate has been raging for decades and it’s gotten unbelievably ugly.
“The dream, what they’re doing right now, is unrealistic,” Johnson said. “Who’s going to shop at the little boutiques and pay $500 for a little black dress for the ball? That’s not the economy. This is never, ever going to happen. We say we want to eat in really nice restaurants, so bring us a bunch that we can all enjoy. Hold it! Most of the people who live here shop at Wal-Mart and Meijer, like me. Where do we really go to eat? Mountain Jacks and a pizza place.”
The answer is... tourists, said Steve Hayward, planning consultant for the Village. If the developers built only six storefronts and residential—no matter how brick-lined and quaint—it would spell empty shops and failure.
Andy Andres, Jr., believes it will take compromise to move forward. Andres, a 20-year veteran of industrial design, has taken the Village’s lifestyle plan and sketched it with “new urbanism” features. It may not be perfect, but it’s a starting point for discussion, he said.
He said the developers should consider a new approach other than basically replicating the lay-out of the successful Eastwood Town Center in Lansing, which Steven Smith, one of the developers, was involved in.
Most of all, this debate needs grace and civility, he said.
Hayward believes the design is already there: “Fairview Village, a lifestyle center in Oregon has received numerous smart growth awards, and we’re even better than Fairview.”
Hayward said the development will generate traffic, but it’s better than sprawl along M-72. The Village has already made 120 changes at the township’s request. Not everyone has to like the Village, but its owners have the right to develop the property in a legal way that’s also economically viable.
If, at last, the village is built, it’s easy to see that this region will draw thousands of more tourists and potentially more retail along M-72.
The question is… will we like our new look?