12 Mile Road/I-696 Corridor

Area Characteristics

4 miles along the south side of 12 Mile Rd, with one small area across I-696 at Orchard Lake

Office zoning from Halsted to halfway between and Orchard Lake. From that point east, a mix of multi-family, commercial and office, with one area of RA-2 zoning, occupied by the HAWK.

East end of OCC campus is also zoned RA-2.

Approximately 613 acres total.

8 Mile Road east of Farmington Road

Area Characteristics

This area runs along 8 Mile Road from the Farmington line (just east of Farmington Road) to Middlebelt Road. It is predominantly industrial, with LI-1 zoning. A dash of commercial zoning is located at Orchard Lake. The land immediately north is mostly RA-3-zoned single-family residential, with one mobile home park as well. While most of the city’s other industrial land is located in planned industrial parks, this area is much more a patchwork of individual sites, some quite small. Similar zoning is located across 8 Mile in Livonia. Much of the development in this area reflects the relatively advanced age of the building stock.

Orchard Lake Road

Area Characteristics

This is one of the city’s principal commercial arteries, with a very wide range of commercial uses, and a patchwork of zoning districts, with all four B districts and several office districts, with a handful or P-1 Parking parcels sprinkled through.

Lots range widely in size, with very shallow depth on the east side of OLR north of 13 Mile Road.

The corridor is anchored by the commercial concentration at OLR and 12 Mile Road at the south end, and it feeds into another major commercial concentration just south of 14 Mile.

Northwestern Highway

Area Characteristics

This area was once a full series of neighborhoods, but as commercial development has bitten into those old residential areas, the remaining neighborhoods have slowly emptied out, leaving only a handful of residences. A new apartment complex with structured parking has been approved at the north end of the site. There was once a conceptual PUD plan for the entire area, though this was never executed and was strictly oriented around big box commercial development. The east and west portions of the area are built around big box commercial, and the biggest box, Sam’s Club, is now empty. The whole area occupies about 140 acres, though certainly not all of this is likely to redevelop in the near future. The core area west of the former Sam’s Club comprising a little less than 30 acres, is the most likely near-term prospect for redevelopment.

M-5 and Grand River

Area Description

The Grand River corridor between 8 Mile and Farmington is anchored by Corewell (formerly Beaumont, and before that, Botsford), and has an eclectic mix of current land uses. It is a primarily commercial corridor with many nearby residential neighborhoods. In this Master Plan, we recommend including the northeast corner of Drake and Grand River, which is on the other side of Farmington, in our special planning efforts for the corridor.