"It's very well located for redevelopment," says Steve Schafer,secretary and treasurer of Phoenix Land. "The conditions are miserablefor the homeowners who live there now."Most of the homes were built in the 1940s on the 85-acre site at OrchardLake Road and Northwestern Highway. The property is on a floodplain, andseptic systems have stopped functioning. The residents could have paid asubstantial sum to hook up into the water system. Six times, developmentplans for the area have fallen through. The new plan was approved by thecity Planning Commission recently, and will be before the City Councilsometime during the first two weeks in January.

Schafer says an existing Kmart may be demolished to make way for a newone. He's also talking to representatives of Lowe's and other departmentstores and restaurants.If the council approves the project, the developers could beginconstruction by July, with a completion date sometime in 2003.