KALAMAZOO, MI-Western Michigan University has agreed to partner with Dallas-based KDC Real Estate Development and Investments to redevelop its historic East Campus. The developer, which has a local office in Dearborn, has a $60 million budget to bring multifamily and a hotel to the handful of buildings that were built at the turn of the 20th century.
The East Campus include the first buildings constructed at the college, founded as Western State Normal School at the top of Prospect Hill overlooking the city. The four buildings include East Hall, West Hall, North Hall and the Speech and Hearing Building, totaling more than 225,000 square feet. These buildings were mostly abandoned with the West Campus was built after 1940, and now only college archive storage remains in the buildings. The East Campus is across Oakland Avenue from Waldo Stadium, still used by the university’s football team.
Starting last year and through this year, the college sought proposals for what to do with the buildings. Western officials said the university wants to continue to own the land, but can transfer ownership of the buildings to allow a developer to capitalize on tax incentives.
Randall Doran, an SVP with KDC (and a 1983 WMU graduate), tells GlobeSt.com that plans for the buildings include a boutique hotel and conference center that would reuse an existing fitness center in one of the buildings, as well as multifamily housing and student housing. “’These could include loft apartments or some other sort of housing,” Doran says.
He says the state legislature is examining the feasibility of tax credits and other incentives, and the outcome of that discussion will be key to getting the project off the ground. Incentives such as the state’s historic tax credits were cut by Gov. Rick Snyder earlier this year, but there is a legislative push to gain them back. “These credits are now being talked about in Lansing right now. If we get approval, we can start on getting this going in the spring,” Doran says. “It would take about two years to get these properties renovated and completed.”
Research shows a demand for a hotel and housing for students, faculty and visiting families, Doran says. “The university just completed a new student housing complex and it was oversold when it opened,” he says. “I’m confident the market is there.”
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