Rezoning request for Menards store goes back before Scio Township Planning Commission
The Scio Township Planning Commission will take a closer look Monday night at a request from Menards to rezone property on Jackson Road for a store.
The request — which was first considered by the township at its April 23 meeting — would pave the way for the Wisconsin-based home improvement chain to build a roughly 160,000-square-foot store on the southeast corner of Jackson and Staebler Roads.
Menard Inc. wants to build a home improvement store in Scio Township.
Source: Facebook
The 165-acre site at Jackson and Staebler Roads was a target of development in 2009.
Lizzy Alfs | AnnArbor.com
Menard Inc. is under contract to purchase 62 acres of the 165-acre site known as the former Farmer Grant land.
To move forward with the project, Menards is requesting to rezone the conditionally zoned site to straight general commercial. The site was conditionally zoned in 2009 for a $100 million mixed-use project called The Village at Honey Creek, which later fell through due to zoning issues and the crash in the real estate market.
At the same time, Scio Township is looking to revert the conditional zoning for the remainder of the property back to its original designation: general agriculture. Township planner Doug Lewan said he believes this revert-back is required by ordinance.
In 2010, Menards attempted to build a store in the Ann Arbor area, but the plans were halted when Pittsfield Township Planning Commission voted to deny the rezoning request from light industrial to commercial, and the Board of Trustees then voted to accept the recommendation.
Rezoning the land would not have been in keeping with the township’s Master Land Use plan, township Clerk Alan Israel said at the time.
Menards has 262 locations in 13 states, including nine locations in Michigan. The company is also currently looking to build stores in Warren, Livonia and Kalamazoo County, and is in various stages of approval for rezoning requests and site plans for those stores.
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.
Comments
A2K
Tue, May 15, 2012 : 11:35 a.m.
Menards has a great selection, and it would be nice to have the rest of the property be zoned agriculture; especially if one of our local organic produce growers moved in. I have a bit of nostalgia for Farmer Grant's -- we always bought our Christmas trees and bedding annuals from them, and I went to school with a few of the Grant boys...it's odd to drive down Jackson and see all the stores where there used to be scrub and farmland. I like carefully planned development, but I miss the open spaces sometimes.
ruminator
Tue, May 15, 2012 : 2:26 a.m.
Approve a big box, get a roundabout free. The Costco project is a fine example or skilled negotiating by the road commission. Extort $500.000 of the 2.5 MILLION from the big box and stick the taxpayer with the rest. I can hardly wait to see what they get from Menards.
Subroutine
Mon, May 14, 2012 : 7:39 p.m.
I really hope the Scio Township Planning Commission doesn't screw this up and scare off Menards. The land they want to build on has been vacant and useless for a decade or so. Let them build something useful there. It will create jobs, bring in tax money and provide an alternative to Lowes in that area. I don't see a down side unless someone else wants to do something better with this property.
Mick52
Mon, May 14, 2012 : 9:10 p.m.
I agree. This is such a benefit for Scio if they turn it down I would start wondering if someone was paid off to kill it. If it does get built, I hope it is similar to the Menard's in Jackson. I like Lowe's but Menard's offers a much bigger variety of products.