West Main Villages development will offer apartments, duplexes, and retail in Oshtemo Township

A Way Home — Housing Solutions: This story is part of Southwest Michigan Second Wave’s series on solutions to homelessness and ways to increase affordable housing. It is made possible by a coalition of funders, including the City of Kalamazoo, Kalamazoo County, the ENNA Foundation, and Kalamazoo County Land Bank.

Site preparation has begun for a large combined residential and commercial complex in Oshtemo Township, west of Kalamazoo. A wooded, 48-acre parcel at 6377 West Main St. is being cleared for construction of up to 444 dwelling units and 11 retail businesses.

This is the first big mixed-use development in Oshtemo; it required zoning changes by the township board to create a mixed-use district. The site on the south side of West Main is between 9th and 10th Streets and across from Advia Credit Union. It’s about a half-mile west of Highway 131.

The development, called West Main Villages, is a project of the Ferlito Group, a 45-year-old, highly respected real estate developer based in Detroit. Oshtemo has approved plans for 336 apartments plus 54 duplexes, with the residential area fronted by 11 retail businesses lined along Main Street.

However, the number of apartments might be reduced, says Tony Ferlito, founder of the development company. A supermarket is interested in locating at the site, and that would take some space now dedicated to apartments. Oshtemo says such a change would require repeating the rezoning process.

One-, two- and three-bedroom apartments will be in three-story buildings. Amenities planned for the apartment complex include a clubhouse and pool, a central park, and walking trails. The 54 duplexes will be located on typical neighborhood streets, and the units will be for sale, not for rent. Eleven one-story buildings for businesses will face Main Street, and possible tenants suggested in the plan include restaurants, coffee shop, hardware store, dental clinic and electronics store. Documents describing the development say the anticipated residents are young professionals and retired people.

Oshtemo Planning Director Jodi Stefforia says, “We did a housing plan with the W.E Upjohn Institute that said we need 750 new dwelling units of all types by 2030, and this project is giving us 444 of those, but we have other projects happening, too. If everything that the developers and landowners have talked to us about comes to fruition, we’ll have 840 dwelling units by 2030.

“We’re wrapping up a comprehensive master plan, and as part of that, we had a company do a market study to see what we needed for additional retail, or industrial, or residential square footage, and they said we definitely need the 840 dwelling units, but we could absorb up to 1,500. There would be enough market for 1,500 additional dwelling units; they wouldn’t sit empty or unsold if they were built.”

Stefforia continues, “The problem is it’s so expensive now to build that it makes more sense for homebuilders to build $500,000 to $800,000 homes just to offset the cost of constructing it.”

She notes that to counter this, in 2023 the Michigan Legislature amended the state Brownfield Act to help homebuilders cover their costs. If a developer agrees to make 20 percent of the new homes income restricted for a set number of years, he is reimbursed for his infrastructure costs, that is the roads and water and sewer systems. This arrangement can make the affected apartments and houses more attainable.

Income-restricted rent refers to housing where the rent is capped to ensure affordability for people with low to moderate incomes. The intention is to provide affordable living spaces, allowing residents to allocate more income to other necessities. There is no decision yet on whether or not West Main Villages will use this program.

Tony Ferlito, the developer, says, “Now we’re just working on our engineering. We’re clearing trees on the site.  We’re going through the design phase, which is monstrous. You can imagine, design all the roads, the sewer and water; design the detention pond. We’re working diligently to do all that engineering so we can hopefully break ground in the spring.”

Ferlito says the project will be built in three phases — phase one is retail, phase two is apartments, and phase three is the duplexes. He says his guess is that work will definitely start on the retail in the spring of 2026. Work on the apartments might be in the fall of 2026, and the duplexes sometime in 2027.”

“We’ll start with the boulevard,” Ferlito continues. “We have a road that needs to be built off of Main Street, going back into the site, so that will be the very first thing that goes in. By then, we’ll know what kind of buildings are going in. But we have no idea right now. We’re talking to various tenants and nobody’s signed up on anything yet, so we’re just plowing through the process of talking to potential tenants, trying to model the apartments, and figuring out costs. We’re in the thick of it, but we’re only 30 percent into that process.”

The Oshtemo development will significantly add to Kalamazoo County’s housing, but much more is needed, according to the April “Kalamazoo County Housing Plan Updates” prepared by the W.E. Upjohn Institute. It states, “Housing has seen significant development since this plan was initially written in 2022. The total number of units receiving permits during 2022, 2023, and 2024 is 2,503. About 40% of those units are single-family, while roughly 60% are multi-family. 

“Texas Township saw the highest number of new units obtaining permits with 660; the bulk of this development was near Texas Corners. Oshtemo Township saw 231 new units permitted. The Gull Lake area (Richland and Ross Townships) issued permits for 212 units.

“The 2,503 new permitted units is a significant step in the right direction, but it is not enough to keep pace with the demand. The county needs to build around 1,100 new units per year through 2030 to absorb the demand estimated in this plan. The county needs a total of 5,497 additional units by 2030.”

Kalamazoo County officials say the mixed-use development, as currently proposed by the Ferlito Group, will make a dent in the number of housing units needed currently in Kalamazoo County.  The developer proposes that 18% of the rental apartments be rented at or below 80% of the area median income (AMI).  This meets the recently approved County Housing Tax Increment Finance policy.  

The developer, Ferlito says, “There’s a lot of uncertainty now in the United States. Who knows the future? Things change so fast we don’t know where the heck we’re gonna be six months from now. If the economy changes, we might not do anything for a year or two.

“We love Oshtemo. We like the Kalamazoo market, and we actually own the property. We put a shovel in the ground and put our money where our mouth is, so now it’s just a matter of figuring it out.”