JV Gets Cleanup Funds for $320M Retail Site

TROY, MI-Both the state and the city have approved financial assistance to Diamond Troy JV LLC to build the $320 million, mixed-use Pavilions of Troy project at the former Kmart headquarters complex here. The LLC, a venture between Richardson Development Group, Boorn Partners and New York City-based BlackRock, plans to replace the 900,000-sf HQ complex, using brownfield funding, to build up to 440,000 sf of retail 132 multifamily units, a theater and more.

In April, the Troy City Council approved a resolution to reimburse the venture, through a TIF, up to $13.2 million for approved activities to remediate the property, including demolition of the current complex. The eligible activities under the city’s brownfield plan include the “demolition of structures and lead and asbestos abatement, on eligible properties that are functionally obsolete,” according to the resolution.

Kmart moved its 5,000 employees out after the company was acquired by Sears in 2005. Troy officials have approved of the redevelopment project because it will help make a downtown for the large Detroit suburb, which has two large enclosed malls, Oakland and Somerset, but no walkable lifestyle retail center. City officials have sought for years to achieve a downtown, after several failed attempts to bring retail and a theater to the city’s public campus at Interstate 75 and Big Beaver Road. Troy officials could not be reached for this story, and Hunter Richardson, president of his self-named firm, did not return calls for comment. His Web site for the project has not been updated since last year.