Silverman Developing Real Estate...Since 1919. Silverman In The News

Builder wants to bring more people to Holly

By DOUG HENZE , Of The Oakland Press 03/12/2003
March 12, 2003

HOLLY TWP. - Pulte Homes has taken over the residential portion of one of the largest mixed-use developments in Oakland County history, with plans to increase Holly's population outside the village by 50 percent in the next three years.

The Bloomfield Hills builder's Riverside Woods of Holly project will include 818 homes and attached condominiums when it is completed in 2006.

Bingham Farms-based Silverman Cos., which sold Pulte the 350-acre site on Fish Lake Road between Academy and Grange Hall roads, expects to put up 100,000 square feet of retail next year and up to 400,000 square feet more in three to five years.

Tenants for The Shops at Riverside, to be built on both sides of Grange Hall Road, have not been named. Neither Pulte nor Silverman would reveal their dollar investments in the project.

"Our view of Grange Hall Road is it's really the next M-59," said Gilbert "Buzz" Silverman, chairman and chief executive officer for Silverman Cos. "We do have a great deal of interest from the retail community (and) the market is under served."

Pulte, which will sell its homes for $145,000 to the $290,000s, plans to bring 2,045 residents to Holly - a community now known for its quaint village and annual Dickens Festival. The township now has a population of about 3,900 outside the village and 6,000 within the village.

"Obviously, it's going to have significant impact on both (the roads and schools), particularly in the schools," said township Supervisor Dale Smith. "This isn't something that snuck up on us. That property was master planned that way since 1977. If you're going to have growth, all you can do is control and direct it."

Holly Township, like some other rural communities in metro Detroit, has designated growth areas in its master plan. The township's southwest portion, where the Pulte development will be built, is among those.

Holly built a new high school in 1999 and a new elementary school just prior to that, Smith pointed out. If necessary, the old high school - where community education classes are held - could again be opened to public school students.

The Riverside Woods development, while rapidly expanding growth, has the potential to control it, in an odd way. The developers are paying to extend water and sewer from the village to Riverside Woods.

"Because we're paying for the tie-in, we've got exclusive rights to it for the next 10 years," said Mark Powers, vice president of marketing for Pulte's Great Lakes region. Other developers can't tap into the utilities.Silverman began its development efforts about six years ago. Some residents challenged the project in Oakland County Circuit Court and initiated a recall attempt against Smith and township Clerk Karin Winchester over the development.Silverman sold the land to Pulte last winter. Silverman kept 30 acres for its retail project.Buzz Silverman would describe desired tenants only as "large, medium and small neighborhood retailers."

Riverside Woods, he said, will be connected by walkways - including a bridge over the Shiawassee River - to allow residents to travel on foot to shops and nearby schools.

Pulte's portion of the project will include two-story, single-family homes ranging from 1,300 square feet to 2,900 square feet and two-story, attached condominiums ranging from 1,100 square feet to 1,600 square feet. A sales model for the brick-faced, single-family homes is under way, but the condos won't be built until 2004.

"We're building some of the first higher-end homes in Holly," Powers said.
By Oakland County standards, the homes are considered affordable. Most suburbs closer to Detroit have run out of large pieces of land.

"This is one of the few areas of Oakland County that makes sense for us," Powers said, explaining that the company favors large acreage for development. "We're able to go up here and get the land inexpensively and hit a price point you can't get anywhere else in Oakland County."

Pulte's interest in the Holly market was increased because of the success of its Preserve of Woodfield development in 2000 and Crosswinds Communities' Millpointe Holly project in 1998, Powers said. Pulte also has built in the Grand Blanc market to the north.

The company is leaving 120 acres of land within Riverside Woods untouched, including wetlands that can't be developed and the corridor along the Shiawassee River.
"Part of Holly's charm is that it's pretty rural," Powers said of the decision to make the project a "green" development. "We think it's going to be pretty successful. We think there's really a pent-up demand."