U-M health system buys more land for parking at former Kmart HQ site
Posted By: Detroit Free Press on March 21, 2025. For more information, please click here to read the source article.
The University of Michigan’s health system is buying some additional acreage at the former Kmart world headquarters site on Big Beaver in Troy.
The U-M Board of Regents on Thursday approved the purchase of two more parcels at the site, sized at 2.2 acres and 1.9 acres, that would provide parking for the health system’s future $250 million medical complex, which is expected to be built and open by spring 2027.
The forthcoming University of Michigan Health complex would anchor a broader mixed-use development on the roughly 40-acre site, which could eventually include up to 750 units of housing, a 250-room hotel and 300,000 square feet of retail space.
Last year, the university’s regents approved the purchase of the larger 7.3-acre site for $4.4 million. The total sale price for the two smaller parcels was $2.5 million.
The seller of all the parcels was a joint venture involving the Forbes and Frankel families. The joint venture also is the proposed mixed-use project’s developer. The site is adjacent from the Somerset Collection mall, owned by the Forbes Co.
The future four-story, 224,000-square-foot medical complex would be the first of its kind for Michigan Medicine in Oakland County. It would include an ambulatory surgical center, diagnostic imaging, sports medicine, cancer care, reproductive medicine and other clinical specialties.
The medical complex’s surface parking lots would accommodate about 900 vehicles, according to university planning documents.
A public hearing on the broader mixed-use development is scheduled for April 8 before Troy’s Planning Commission.
The old Kmart headquarters dated to 1972 and had emptied out by 2006. The architecturally unique structure then was torn down in late 2023 and early 2024.
The Forbes/Frankel joint venture bought the roughly 40-acre site in 2009 for $17.5 million.
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