$1.6 Bil Pinnacle Aeropark Project Pared Down

DETROIT-Wayne County’s plans for hotels, offices, high-tech facilities, industrial sites and warehouses in the Pinnacle Aeropark project, a large swatch of land just south of the expanding Detroit Metropolitan Airport, have been pared down. The project was announced in early 1999, promising to draw up to $1.6 billion in new investment to Huron Township and Romulus, MI.

“The 1,800 acres have been adjusted to 1,300,” says David Tyler, assistant to the director of economic development for Wayne County. “We’ve decided we don’t need some of the peripheral properties. A lot of the land was the airport’s, anyway, so they will just continue to hold it.”

Tyler says the county will instead sell various parcels to developers. “There still may be a few large projects, but it won’t be all one developer.”

The county was set to award a development permit to either Heritage Development Group of Southgate, MI or Schostak Brothers and Company Inc. of Southfield, MI However, county officials have balked at having to choose between the two influential developers. Instead, the county is moving forward at acquiring the property and installing infrastructure such as sewers and roads.

County officials set the project in motion after examining the growing popularity of development along I-94 and I-275 and after the start of construction on the new Northwest Airlines 99-gate Midfield Terminal, which is expected to cost more than $1 billion.

Some land may be sold directly to companies looking to build on the property, Tyler says.Officials still wish to have the project separated into class A office space, high-tech buildings and warehouse uses, along with a possible hotel, golf course and retail shops.

The county has reportedly acquired about 1,000 acres of the property and expects to get the rest within three months. The county must then work with the two municipalities to request zoning changes. About $50 million in infrastructure work should begin in April 2001.