An ambitious, new $38 million mixed use development could be headed for the east side of Traverse City – one that could also satisfy Northwestern Michigan College’s hunger for more student housing.

Alex Mowczan, whose Summerside Properties owns Cambria Suites, Forest Hills Apartments, and Shadowland Motel near the intersection of Munson Avenue and East Front Street, will next week propose SkipStone Crossing, a project that includes four new buildings and a four-story parking deck. $30 million of the project (including all the buildings) would be privately financed; Mowczan hopes the remaining $8 million can be covered by Tax Increment Financing (TIF) to fund the parking deck and some corresponding infrastructure. The project will go before the Grand Traverse Brownfield Development Authority Board at a meeting next week.

At the core of the concept, Mowczan and his Chief Financial Officer Jack Vanderzowen tell The Ticker, is a proposed partnership with NMC. The best part for the college? The deal would likely mean a long-term lease of student apartments, offices, and a new college bookstore -- but no upfront investment by NMC.

“To build our own student housing would cost approximately $26 million. So conceptually, having no upfront investment would let us use our debt capacity for something else,” says Vicki Cook, NMC’s vice president of finance and administration.

Student housing has become a critical need on the campus. The few and outdated dorm rooms and apartments NMC offers are “already creating capacity issues,” says Cook. The college’s campus master plan calls for the addition of 300 new student beds to accommodate more international students and those who struggle to find nearby and affordable housing. Another appealing component of the proposal would allow NMC students to utilize the new apartments during the academic year, but Summerside to rent them throughout the high-demand summer season.

The college and Summerside have also discussed relocating the NMC bookstore from the basement of West Hall to a location on Munson Avenue, something that could deliver a high-profile “storefront” for the college and open up space in its previous location for an expanded student health center.

All told, the project on the three-acre site would include:
  --  Building A along Munson Avenue, a commercial building with 8,700 square feet of retail space (and potentially the bookstore) on the main level and two floors of office space above
  --  Building B just around the corner on East Front with 80 residential/student apartments including kitchenettes
  --  Building C, screening the parking deck and including 12-16 residential units and three stories
  --  A four-story parking deck shared by students, those in the office building, Cambria Suites, and Dennos Museum
  --  An executive training center that would come as a "phase two," including classrooms and meeting space

A pedestrian walkway across East Front Street is also part of the concept as created by local architect John Dancer.

The Forest Hills Apartments and the Shadowland – which has seen its share of problems in recent years, would be torn down to make way for the development. Both structures have been designated by the city assessor’s office as “functionally obsolete,” thus qualifying the project for TIF/brownfield dollars.

The proposed project will not only need approval from the Brownfield Authority in order to get done (Mowczan says the TIF is “essential” to the project’s math working), it will also need more fleshed-out details to get NMC’s official blessing. The NMC Board of Trustees endorsed a “non-binding letter of intent” to explore the development back in December, but Cook adds that nothing is yet set in stone.

“It’s still really in the preliminary stages of discussion, though we like the concept and are very much interested,” she says.

Vanderzowen sees a win-win. “To be able to cooperate with NMC because they don’t have the dollars for bricks and mortar, and also the city planners have identified the East Front Corridor as a priority; I could see our development as the anchor at the end of that corridor,” he says.

It is anticipated that construction could begin as early as spring 2015 for occupancy in spring 2016. The executive training center would come a few years later.

Mowczan purchased the three acre site in two parcels, the first in 2001, and the second in 2006. Cambria Suites opened in 2009.