Downtown rental housing is on its way to downtown Ann Arbor. Farmington Hills-based Village Green Companies has set the ground breaking for Ann Arbor City Apartments before the end of the year.
"We're moving forward and looking forward to working with the city and DDA to build something the residents of Ann Arbor haven't seen before," says Jon Frank, vice president of Village Green.
That something they haven’t seen before is a downtown apartment building dedicated to non-student rentals. Most of the downtown-area residences are either for sale or geared toward student rentals. The multi-use building is planned for First and Washington streets on the west side of the city's downtown across the street from the Blind Pig and Cavern Club. The development replaces a recently demolished parking deck.
The eight-story structure will feature 146 new apartments and 241 parking spaces. The parking spaces will be on four levels, two in the basement and two more on the first two floors of the building. The city will operate the parking structure section of the building as a public parking garage.
The one- and two-bedroom apartments will occupy the top six stories of the building. They will average about 700 square feet. About 10 percent of the apartments will be dedicated to affordable housing. The units will not have individual balconies or terraces, but there will be a community rooftop deck for all of the units. The apartments have access to as many as 73 spaces during the day and 146 spaces during the night.
Village Green also plans to use extensive green building techniques and technologies in the Ann Arbor City Apartments building. Among those are using recyclable materials, installing a green roof and making the building energy efficient.
The company also plans to keep the building as rental apartments for the foreseeable future. The company owns similar downtown apartment buildings in Minneapolis and Chicago.
Source: Jon Frank, vice president of Village Green Companies
Writer: Jon Zemke
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