Resuscitation of Bloomfield Park in the Works

This is how already-completed structures at Bloomfield Park looked in February 2013. Now, they’re increasingly tagged with graffiti and are beginning to rust. (Patch file photo)

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An eyesore left behind when an ambitious $500 million development project collapsed in 2008 may soon be spruced up as the 80-acre Bloomfield Park project gets back on track.

Officials in Bloomfield Township and Pontiac are meeting with officials from the Southfield development firm Redico, which acquired the graffiti covered partially completed buildings last fall, The Detroit News reports.

The original plan for the property along Telegraph Road, announced in 2000, called for 80 retail shops, office space, a luxury hotel, a movie theater, two lakes, eight parks and more than 1,500 condominiums, townhouses and lofts. If developed as originally conceived, Bloomfield Park would have been about the size of downtown Birmingham.

Pontiac Mayor Dierdre Waterman, who will represent her city on the newly revamped three-member Joint Development Council, said plans haven’t been formally presented, “but we understand through Oakland County, who also has been shepherding this process, that the plans are imminent.”

Bloomfield Township Supervisor Leo Savoie also is a member of the council. He and Waterman have narrowed down the candidates for the third neutral position to attorney Dennis Cowan and retired Judge Gene Schnelz.

The 80-acre property, most of which is located in Pontiac, had been designed at a brownfield, making it eligible for tax abatement for environmental improvements. But when the property lay fallow for so long, the brownfield designation was terminated.

Reinstatement of the brownfield development authority is a key to the project’s success, with overall improvements outweighing a temporary loss of tax revenue Waterman said.

“It’s a give-and-take kind of arrangement in which you spur economic development by forgoing immediate tax collection,” she said.

Waterman and Savoie have agreed to discuss proposed development plans with their respective communities for before voting on them as members of the Joint Development Council.

“My objective is to bring forth a viable project that both communities can be proud of,” Savoie said. “I’m very optimistic. I think we can come up with something that really works.”

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