Redevelopment Planned for Red Roof Inn and Big Boy Properties

PictureOverhead view of the development area (in yellow boundary)

By Wendy Carman, May 2020

The property at the northeast corner of Plymouth Road and US 23 that has been used for the Red Roof Inn and Big Boy since 1979 is being redeveloped. Developers from West Bloomfield, Michigan bought the property in 2018 and closed the Big Boy Restaurant. They submitted plans for redevelopment to the City in January 2019 and have been working with the Planning Department since then.

On May 5, 2020, the City of Ann Arbor Planning Commission voted to recommend that City Council rezone the 4.5-acre site from Planned Unit Development (PUD) to Fringe Commercial (C3) district. The existing PUD zoning restricts uses on that site and intensity to 23,326 sq ft for a 2-story motel and a 1 story restaurant, while the proposed rezoning to C3 use would allow up to 393,294 sq ft of commercial space.

This project (click here to see plans) will now go to the City Council for consideration. The process requires first a vote to schedule the project on the Council agenda for a public hearing and a vote (called a first reading) and then the public hearing and vote would take place on a second date (called the second reading). They will be scheduling the First reading for June 15th and the Public hearing will likely be July 20th.
The new project will require 3 votes by City Council.
  1. The rezoning from PUD to C3 
  2. A site plan for 90,533 sq to allow a motel, a 6-story hotel, and restaurant space including a stacking lane for a drive-up window
  3. Approval of the Planned Project modification that would allow the Hotel to be 65 ft 10 inches high instead of the C3 allowed 55 ft and permit the existing front set back to remain at 212 ft instead of the C3 maximum of 25 ft.
This site has two driveways. One is the shared drive off Green Road that goes past the drive-up window for CVS and around the Plum Market property. The second driveway allow cars to enter from or exit to Plymouth Road and is also shared with the rest of the site. The proximity of the driveway access to and from Plymouth Road to this site presents difficulties for those who want to turn left out of the site. One of the intentions of the original PUD in 1978 was to allow only uses that could keep the number of trips to and from this site to Plymouth Road to a minimum and encourage them to use Green Road as the exit, even if they want to go east on Plymouth. The current proposal has dismissed those concerns as minor despite the enormous increase in Plymouth Road traffic in the decades since 1978.
The C3 district is intended to provide for commercial activities where the customer comes directly to the establishment by automobile. Good automobile accessibility is essential to these districts. The uses permitted, because of their lack of pedestrian activity and their required contact with auto access would be incompatible in the downtown area. 

The staff report for this proposed re-development indicates that they do not think it makes sense to modify the existing PUD to allow this development when a C3 district suits the needs of the applicant, land owner and community and provides more flexibility for future uses. 

The staff report, maps and copies of the site plan can be seen at https://etrakit.a2gov.org/etrakit/Search/project.aspx  and then insert the project number Z19-007