Garfield Township planning commissioners could soon approve new headquarters for Cherryland Electric Cooperative on 40 acres of land near Rennie School Road. The board – which is slated to vote on the proposal next Wednesday – reviewed details of the 110,000-square-foot complex along with several other developments at their most recent meeting.

Cherryland Electric HQ
Cherryland Electric Cooperative is hoping to break ground later this year on new headquarters on 40 acres on the north side of Rennie School Road (pictured, rendering). Construction is expected to take 18 months, putting the development on track for a late 2027 or early 2028 occupancy.

The project is the first major one to come forward after township officials recently approved a request from the Oleson Foundation to rezone nearly 171 acres at the corner of US-31 and Rennie School Road to a mix of industrial, commercial, and multi-family residential uses. Cherryland Electric Cooperative, which is currently located in Grawn in Blair Township, would be a key part of that site redevelopment. The new facility is estimated at 110,000 square feet and would have two entrances, including a public-facing customer entrance and a gated employee entrance that can only be accessed with a key fob.

Having those separate access points is critical to enhancing security for the utility, CEO Rachel Johnson said. The new complex will have a storm and cyber-hardened dispatch operations center that needs to be guarded from outside threats to ensure the community’s “critical infrastructure” is protected, she said. Cherryland Electric Cooperative also asked to have driveways on both Rennie School Road and Oleson Boulevard, a new road that’s being built to connect Rennie School Road and Meadow Lane Drive.

While normally just one driveway is allowed, Township Planning Director John Sych said the zoning ordinance allows flexibility in certain situations. Johnson explained that in the event of a natural disaster, outside utility trucks could come from all over Michigan and beyond to assist Cherryland Electric. Having multiple entrances would allow trucks to flow into the complex off Oleson Boulevard, follow a one-way traffic line to be fueled up and readied for departure to the field, then exit onto Rennie School Road. Such a configuration is now industry best practice and helps move large numbers of vehicles safely and efficiently through the complex, she said.

Sych said he believed Cherryland Electric had a “sufficient case” to be granted multiple driveways. Johnson noted that only 20 of the 40 acres of the property will be used for the new headquarters, leaving the rest of the land for future expansion. In response to commission questions, she said the utility doesn’t plan to use the property for electric or solar generation beyond a potential small amount in the future to power the complex itself.

Planning commissioners delayed approving the project until their next meeting on March 25 because they wanted more details on a berm that would buffer the Cherryland Electric headquarters from neighboring properties. Sych said because the complex is such a “significant development” – one of the largest to come before the planning commission in the last few years – it was worth a short delay to ensure the board has full details on the buffering and landscaping plan before voting to approve it.

More developments in Garfield Township…
> Planning commissioners have scheduled an April 8 public hearing on a planned expansion of Sugar Plum Apartments, located off Garfield Road between South Airport and Hammond roads. The development, which is currently 172 units, would add 55 new apartments for a total of 227 on the property. That is about the “maximum density that they would be allowed,” said Deputy Planning Director Steve Hannon. A new fitness center and offices are also planned.

> Planning commissioners held public hearings on two development proposals and could vote to approve them at their April 8 meeting. The first was a request from owner Jon Dunn to rezone nearly 30 acres of land on North East Silver Lake Road south of the Silver Pines intersection from agricultural (A) to single-family residential (R-1). Hannon noted residents provided feedback during the township’s recent master plan update on balancing preserving some of the township’s rural character and “being able to provide for housing,” which the rezoning could accommodate. The maximum density would be about two houses per acre, he estimated. A specific development hasn’t yet been proposed for the site.

Planning commissioners are also set to vote on a request from Danny Mikhail of Marengo 31, the planned apartment complex under construction behind the Baymont Inn between Hartman and South Airport roads. Mikhail is seeking to amend his township approval to allow for short-term rentals (STRs) in the complex. Garfield Township doesn’t typically allow STRs in residential dwellings but does allow for transient stays and hotel-type uses in the commercial highway (C-H) district where the project is located. Sych pointed out Mikhail could have built a hotel by right if he wanted on the site.

Planning commissioners struggled with concerns over setting a precedent of allowing developers to change their long-term housing projects to short-term rentals or mixing long and short-term rentals in the same development. However, they also acknowledged C-H currently allows both multi-family and hotel uses with no specification for length of stays. The board asked for more information on the developer’s plan to meet hotel-level building codes as well as ownership structures for units. Planning commissioners also discussed the possibility of clarifying the zoning ordinance in the future to better address such projects.

> Finally, planning commissioners scheduled an April 8 public hearing for a request to include the Harbor Light Christian Center property within the Copper Ridge planned unit development (PUD). The church building is planned to be converted into a new medical facility operated by Hand Surgery Partners LLC.