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City Place is an apartment complex on South Fifth Avenue that was the source of much controversy between its initial proposal in 2007 and eventual completion in 2012.

The original proposal included the demolition of several existing homes on the block to make way for the development.  The group Defend the Ann Arbor 7 organized to block it, and the Germantown Neighborhood Association was formed with the goal of turning the area into a historic district. The Ann Arbor City Council formed a South Fourth and Fifth Avenues Historic District Study Committee in August 2009.

The project's original developer, Alex de Parry, created a new proposal in 2009-2010 in an attempt to navigate competing interests.  The new project was named Heritage Row, and proposed to move some of the existing houses towards the front property line and restoring them, while building new townhome structures behind them. This proposal still did not win support from the neighborhood.

In 2011, de Parry declared the Heritage Row proposal unbuildable, and sold the project to Campus Village Communities, who constructed the original, City Place proposal, which opened to tenants in Fall 2012.

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Among those documents is a May 25 letter of intent from Titanium Real Estate Advisors to Jeff Helminski, vice president of Rochester-based Campus Village Communities and one of the partners involved in City Place. The letter, which identifies Campus Village as the developer of City Place, sets forth terms and conditions upon which Titanium — on behalf of an unidentified group of investors — is willing to provide financing for the $13.5 million project.


 

 

 

But Planning Commission chairwoman Bonnie Bona said commissioners should only consider how the City Place site plan stacked up against current zoning law, and not the master plan.

At a Planning Commission working session last week, builder Alex de Parry discussed conceptual plans for a four-story, 84-unit redevelopment of six properties he owns on South Fifth Avenue. The properties (some pictured at right) are 407-433 S. Fifth, just south of William St., which are currently houses broken up into 22 rental apartments. (de Parry also owns 403 S. Fifth, on the corner of William, but that property is not included in the plans.)

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