Garfield Township planning commissioners will review a proposal to bring a Hobby Lobby to Traverse City’s Buffalo Ridge Center and discuss two projects that could bring 156 new apartments to the township at their 7pm meeting Wednesday at Garfield Township Hall.

Hobby Lobby
National arts and crafts retailer Hobby Lobby could open its first Traverse City store if township officials approve amending Buffalo Ridge Center’s planned unit development (PUD) to accommodate the store at the US-31 retail center.

Project plans call for a 55,000 square-foot Hobby Lobby to be constructed in the former Horizon Outlet Center, home to Lucky’s Market and the AMC Cherry Blossom 14/IMAX movie theater. The store is slated to occupy a majority of the western section of the complex where a vacant strip mall building sits today (pictured).

“(Hobby Lobby) is a very large, privately held chain that offers great pricing and a huge selection,” says developer Joe Sarafa. “The closest one is in Petoskey, and that’s a much smaller store. It’s a need that can be filled for the region. We keep bringing in projects like IMAX and Lucky’s that create a lot of enthusiasm and excitement by doing things that aren’t currently here, and this continues that (trend).”

Past legal skirmishes between Sarafa and Garfield Township over Buffalo Ridge Center’s PUD (a zoning plan for a specific development) prompted Township Planner Rob Larrea to recuse himself from reviewing the Hobby Lobby proposal. John Iacoangeli of engineering firm Beckett & Raeder was hired instead as an outside planner to review Sarafa’s application. In a memo to planning commissioners, Iacoangeli cited several concerns he believed the board should address before approving Hobby Lobby’s proposal.

One of those concerns is a “lack of coherent vision for how (Buffalo Ridge Center) would be redeveloped,” resulting in projects like Lucky’s and Hobby Lobby coming forward on a piecemeal basis instead of under a unified plan. That process has made it difficult to adequately plan for infrastructure throughout the center, such as parking and sidewalk networks, Iacoangeli said. He noted the construction of Hobby Lobby will require tearing up a portion of AMC’s recently constructed parking lot. “The demolition of previously installed IMAX theater site improvements reinforces the lack of a comprehensive approach and project phasing (at Buffalo Ridge Center),” he wrote.

Iacoangeli also cited concerns that the parking lots of Hobby Lobby and Lucky’s will overlap in ways that could cause traffic conflicts, and that Buffalo Ridge Center’s left-turn lane to access those stores could become congested. Project maps show the potential development of another unnamed, 45,000 square-foot store south of Hobby Lobby in the future; if that project moved ahead, the Michigan Department of Transportation would likely need to do a traffic study to reevaluate the intersection entrance to Buffalo Ridge Center on US-31, according to Iacoangeli.

Sarafa says he’s hired a traffic consultant to address any issues of parking or congestion within the development. Responding to the concern of a lack of cohesive vision for Buffalo Ridge Center, Sarafa notes he didn’t “start with a blank slate of 40 acres of farmland” at the site, but instead inherited a “dilapidated, dysfunctional center” with existing leases and legal obligations he had to honor while attempting to redevelop the property.

“I understand planners want everything to fit in a nice box, because it makes connectivity easier, but we have to work within the framework we’ve been given,” Sarafa says. “The retail landscape has also changed. You can’t just build it and they will come anymore; the retailers will tell you exactly where they want to be and when. We have to try and make something good happen here, which isn’t easy.”

Wednesday’s meeting will be an introduction to Sarafa’s PUD amendment; a public hearing will follow at a later date. If approved by the township, Hobby Lobby could open in 2018, Sarafa says. In the interim, other improvements are set to get underway at Buffalo Ridge Center: Sarafa says Outback Steakhouse is set to undergo a complete refacing project this summer, and has also applied to Garfield Township to add a new outdoor dining area at the restaurant.

Apartment Projects
Two proposed apartment projects on Garfield Township’s planning commission agenda Wednesday could bring a total of 156 new units to the area.

Eastwood Custom Homes will appear before planning commissioners for a conceptual review of a potential new 84-unit apartment complex on the east side of Garfield Road between South Airport and Hammond roads. Fox Run, as the project is called, would feature 60 two-bedroom, three-story stacked flats and 24 two-bedroom, two-story townhomes on eight acres of vacant property across from Manitou Woods Apartments. The project site abuts Mitchell Creek Nature Preserve. Eastwood Custom Homes is offering to preserve 3.75 acres of the development site as open space, with another 2.18 acres consisting of green and landscaped areas. The development would also maintain public access to neighboring Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy property.

According to Larrea, township officials “always need to be concerned when a development is adjacent to an area of sensitivity.” But he says “there are engineering techniques and low-impact designs that can drastically reduce or eliminate runoff concerns that could be required as part of an approval.” Wednesday’s meeting will give Eastwood Custom Homes an opportunity to hear informal feedback or concerns from planning commissioners before coming back with a formal application.

Finally, La Franier Road apartment complex Ridge 45 could be expanding if planning commissioners approve the development’s special use permit Wednesday. Ridge 45 has already undergone two phases of construction on its 30-acre property, erecting nine apartment buildings with a total of 232 units. Development group Midwest MFD is now seeking to move ahead with phase three, constructing three more buildings containing 72 market-rate apartments – bringing Ridge 45’s total size to 304 units. Midwest MFD is also seeking township approval Wednesday to rezone another 30 acres at the intersection of La Franier and Hammond roads that would allow for the future development of more multi-family buildings.