Redico Readies for $60M Mixed-Use Project

DEARBORN, MI-The City Council has approved a $60 million mixed-use project here that will redevelop a vacant eyesore in the center of the city’s eastern Downtown area. After a vacant Montgomery Ward building at the corner of Michigan Avenue and Schaefer Raod is torn down, Redico, a Southfield, MI-based developer, plans to build 300,000 sf of office, retail and multifamily.

Barry Murray, economic and community development director for the city, tells GlobeSt.com that the plans include a 150,000-sf medical building, that will include 10,000 sf of ground-floor retail, as well as a two-story office-retail building, and a 100-unit, 110,000-sf senior housing building, as well as a 650-car parking deck. The property will be named Dearborn Town Center.

The 95,000-sf Montgomery Ward property, which encompassed two buildings, was closed in 2001 after the chain went bankrupt in 1999. “We tried to let the private sector handle it, but it didn’t work out,” Murray says. “There were several proposals brought forward, but they had various problems. Then, when we started to get proposals for converting it to warehouse space, we stepped in, we didn’t think that was the appropriate use.”