Plymouth Township commission rejects Meijer proposal

The Plymouth Township Planning Commission rejected a proposal to build a new Meijer Inc. store on the former Detroit House of Corrections site during a crowded meeting on Wednesday.

The proposed store, clocking in at about 160,000 square feet on about 21.5 acres, drew ire from residents of Plymouth as well as Northville townships expressing concerns about increased traffic, crime, disruption to the community’s character and the existence of other grocery options within a few miles, according to a Thursday report in Hometown Life.

Plymouth Township Supervisor Kurt Heise, who supports building the Meijer, said there was a coordinated political campaign against the development — which would have also included a 3,300-square-foot gas station and convenience store — led by Ned Jarwich, who owns the Shell at Five Mile and Beck roads near the project site.

The effort, Heise said, involved misinformation about the project as well as an effort “to bully and intimidate the planning commissioners,” including doxxing the chairman of the commission by sending his home phone number via text to campaign supporters and asking them to call him to sway his vote.

But Jarwich’s attorney, Joseph Xuereb of Livonia-based Xuereb Law Group PC, said “this is only political for Kurt Heise,” not his client.

“This is really personal for my client,” Xuereb said, adding that there was a limited amount of time to raise public awareness of the Wednesday public hearing, requiring the text message campaign. “My client has a lot at stake here.”

A text message was sent to Jarwich seeking an interview. His voicemail box was full.

The Planning Commission chairman, Dennis Cebulski, said the amount of calls he got dwarfed anything he’s experienced in the past.

“I’ve only gotten one or two where people will email me and ask me about some information, but never to try to influence my vote,” he said Friday.

“It definitely was higher up there, probably in the top three or so,” Cebulski said when asked to rank the meeting in terms of its contentiousness. “I have never seen a reaction of the public like this. We try to have our meetings conducted in a reasonable, sane, respectful manner, but this really didn’t follow any of that. There were a lot of personal attacks against the commission. We are residents and taxpayers just like they are. Why would we want to put something in that would cause additional cost to the taxpayers or not be consistent with the character of the township?”

For example, the first public speaker, who described himself as an activist and appeared to be wearing a body camera, requested that the commission “suspend the rules” so he could directly speak to someone on the Redico development team. He also began shouting at members of the commission.

Heise said he wouldn’t speculate on Redico’s or Meijer’s next move, but said a Circuit Court appeal or litigation could be one outcome. Xuereb said he didn’t anticipate pushback from the Southfield-based developer or the Walker, Mich.-based retailer. An email was sent to Redico Friday morning seeking comment.

During the Wednesday meeting, Xuereb his client could be litigious in the matter and that the proposed Meijer isn’t consistent with the township’s ordinances as a retail outlet. He also questioned the veracity of a traffic study done in response and said there had been no analysis of the public safety requirements for a store like that.

Multiple people during the public comment period, which lasted well over an hour, echoed concerns about increased traffic in an already heavily-traveled area and that the development wasn’t consistent with the types of uses that were envisioned for the sweeping site — 800 or so acres, now branded the Michigan International Technology Center — years ago.

Gary Roberts, an architect and planner for the MITC, said the organization has sought and received about $2.5 million in grants for traffic studies and engineering, and that improvements in the future include “a brand new Five Mile Road, three lanes, from where it tapers down at Beck all the way to Napier,” plus a rebuilt Ridge Road which would continue to have two lanes but would have improvements.

“In order for this to be successful, we have to respond to traffic” issues, Roberts said during the meeting following public comment.

Andrew Dunlap, vice president for Redico, said during the meeting that the Plymouth Meijer location would be the fourth the company has developed, and the third in Michigan. He also said there is another 40 acres available on the broader site, which Redico is dubbing the V-Tech business park.

Plans for the Meijer and other development in the area have been around for years, generating controversy since at least 2016. The Detroit Free Press reported at the time that a public meeting over Redico’s proposed project included “booing, shouting and accusations flung against township officials on the pro-development side.”

That proposal, which was in Northville, did not materialize.

The broader development area, the MITC, consists of 800 acres across 15 different chunks of land north and south of Five Mile Road spanning between Napier Road to the west to just west of Beck Road to the east.

A host of uses have popped up along the sites over the years and others are either under construction, such as a 375,000-square-foot warehouse, or in the development process, such as another 350,000-square-foot warehouse, Heise told Crain’s on Wednesday prior to the Planning Commission meeting.

In addition, there are plans to relocate the Northville Downs racetrack to the Plymouth Township portion of the site, Heise said. The site Northville Downs is considering is about 40 acres on the easterly portion of a 128-acre swath of the broader site near Five Mile and Ridge, Crain’s reported in January.

On the Northville Township side, Northville Lumber is moving into a new 100,000-square-foot retail outlet with 12 acres of outdoor storage, Heise said. There is also a hotel and a host of retail uses.