Maple and Miller development revived: New apartments proposed for 3-acre site in Ann Arbor

The owner of the property, Muayad Kasham, wants to demolish an existing home and construct two 18-unit, 3-story apartment buildings and seven single-family homes in a project called the Maple Cove Apartments & Village. It includes a 64-space parking lot.

Access to the site is proposed via two separate locations off North Maple Road—one for the apartment buildings and one for the single-family units.

The site is currently vacant except for one residential home.

“The Maple side is vacant land, and is an eye sore off Maple Road, which is the reason that we are interested in redeveloping that site,” Kasham said in an email to AnnArbor.com. “It has a lot of potential, and is close to M-14, Skyline [High School] and downtown [Ann Arbor].”

In 2005, plans were approved to construct single-family homes on a portion of Kasham’s 3-acre site, but the project fell through.

Then, in 2008, developers planned to build Maple Cove: An office and residential complex consisting of two 27,300-square-foot buildings and one 11,454-square-foot building. Jim Chaconas, a local commercial real estate agent who was marketing the space at the time, said the project fell through when it couldn’t secure financing.

Now, Kasham, who owns Superior Lawn Care & Snow Removal in Ann Arbor, intends to revive development plans for the property.

He is working with his brothers, Jamal, Mahmune and Mohammad, who own JNS Commercial Cleaning in Ann Arbor. Jamie Gorenflo of Midwestern Consulting is the civil engineer for the project.

Site plans for the two apartment buildings include 12 one-bedroom units and 24 two-bedroom units.

Site plans have been submitted to demolish a vacant Marathon at the Maple and Miller intersection and build a Speedway gas station.

Lizzy Alfs | AnnArbor.com

He said the plan is to construct the apartment buildings first and then to possibly sell off the lots for the single-family homes.

The project is still in the preliminary stages, and Kasham said exterior plans for the apartment buildings and single-family units have not been finalized.

The target demographic for the complex: Single-family homeowners, small families and students or professionals, Kasham said.

The Maple and Miller intersection has on and off been a target of development since Skyline High School opened in 2008 one mile north of the intersection.

A building on the southwest corner of the intersection was redeveloped, and a Subway sandwich shop signed a lease to open in half of the 2,200-square-foot space.

Across the street on the southwest corner, a Speedway gas station recently submitted site plans to the city of Ann Arbor to demolish the vacant Marathon gas station and construct a new station and convenience store.

The Maple Cove Apartments & Village development will now go before Ann Arbor’s Planning Commission in the coming weeks.

Lizzy Alfs is a business reporter for AnnArbor.com. Reach her at 734-623-2584 or email her at lizzyalfs@annarbor.com. Follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/lizzyalfs.