Fountain Park Finally Gets City Approval

To get the project, now called Fountain Park, through the city leadership,the developer first had to get past two years of difficulties with almost eightacres of wetlands on the property."At first we had about 120 units, but we had to work around the wetlands,"said Dennis Rollinger, director of sales and marketing for Phoenix.

The plan was lowered to 94 two-story units will be built on roughly 12acres, alongside two acres of new wetlands, and the retail stores will go onthe remaining seven acres."The company has all its approvals and permits that it needs," said MarkTaormina, the city planning director.

Rollinger said Walgreens is building a drugstore on the property, but that'sthe only retailer so far signed on."We're working with a major bank, but I can't disclose the name just yet,"Rollinger said. "We're also talking with a few coffee shops andrestaurants."

Taormina told GlobeSt.com that Phoenix has approval for two restaurant pads.Livonia is hovering around 100,000 residents, but doesn't have much moreroom for new residential property, Taormina said."Growth here isn't what it was 20 years ago," the planning director said."There's not much assembled land available, mostly just infill left."

The units will consist of 1,200- to 1,300-sf stacked ranch homes for $150,000to $160,000, and stacked colonial homes at 1,600-sf for around $180,000,Rollinger told GlobeSt.com."There's not that much new construction in Livonia," Rollinger said. "Andour focus groups has shown a huge demand for empty-nesters and not-so-youngprofessionals. Plus the property has great access to all freeways inMetropolitan Detroit."

The property was originally a single-screen theater known as Mai Kai. Itchanged hands over the years, finally ending its life as the George BurnsTheatre for the Performing Arts, which filed for bankruptcy in 1993. Theproperty has been vacant for 10 years, and has most recently been used byBill Brown Ford dealership as a storage area for inventory, Taormina said.