In collaboration with the city of Ann Arbor, Oxford Companies recently launched the Southside Business Improvement Zone, which aims to improve the city’s south side. Southside BIZ’s first project plans to redesign and beautify three medians on South State Street between Eisenhower Parkway and Interstate 94.
Business owners located within the Southside BIZ will have to pay an additional tax on top of their property taxes to fund the improvement projects. Stakeholders in the project include Destination Ann Arbor, Briarwood Mall and Ann Arbor SPARK.
Oxford is also currently working on Arbor South, a large mixed-use development within the Southside BIZ. In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Margaret Wyzlic, director of marketing and business development for Oxford Companies and Southside BIZ board member, said the Southside BIZ is separate from Oxford’s real estate developments and aims to make common areas in the city more beautiful and accessible.
“Oxford is equal partners for the Southside Business Improvement Zone with the others on the board,” Wyzlic said. “There’s this group of us who care very deeply about the way that the South Side neighborhood shows up aesthetically and visually, especially to visitors and people who are coming into our city from the I-94, State Street exit — it’s one of the major ways people come into Ann Arbor, and right now it’s a little underwhelming.”
Wyzlic said median reconstruction is the beginning of planned improvements to Ann Arbor’s south side, which include additional infrastructure improvements and more installations of public art.
“The median project is … hopefully the first of many overall projects that we will take on in the coming years,” Wyzlic said. “We look forward to doing projects involving wayfinding, public art, additional welcome signage — things like that.”
Ann Arbor SPARK, a nonprofit economic development organization, played a substantial role in the project’s launch. Phil Santer, Ann Arbor SPARK chief operating officer, told The Daily the Southside BIZ will work to enhance a crucial part of Ann Arbor’s community.
“One of the things we’ve been going over the past couple of years is building out what we think will be good from the community aspect, and I think the business improvement zone is a great part of that work, because we do have this need in that part of town,” Santer said. “We have lots of people who visit the area because of football games, sports, other activities and we want to make sure that Ann Arbor is represented as a place of significance and meaning.”
Santer said he believes Ann Arbor’s south side has historically been neglected from improvements because of its position along the city’s border with Pittsfield Township. Santer said the BIZ, along with Arbor South, will improve the area’s infrastructure and accessibility.
“There hadn’t been enough strategic thought given to that particular corridor in that way, because from a municipal perspective, they were just thinking of it as the end of their municipality, not as an entrance point for the region,” Santer said. “There is a larger scale development Oxford is doing, Arbor South, which does envision a much denser, pedestrian-friendly and more mixed-use opportunity.”
Rackham student Jenna James, who is studying landscape architecture, wrote in an email to The Daily that she believes adding vegetation to the medians would improve the natural environment of an area with many large intersections and industrial buildings.
“Our industriousness has done and is doing a lot of damage to ecosystems, and so now it is imperative that we step in to protect and feed these systems with our resources and that same industriousness we use to expand our lives,” James wrote. “When introducing plants and biological infrastructure, you are working towards providing an outlet for that stormwater.”
Southside BIZ plans to replace three concrete, State Street medians with soil, providing a more water-absorbent landscape and hoping to create a more visually appealing median. James wrote that, in addition to the environmental and aesthetic benefits, replacing the median will reduce the need for engineered drainage systems.
“If there are no outlets for water to absorb, we have to rely heavily on unnatural engineering,” James wrote. “The difficulty for practitioners and those investing in projects like these is the unwelcoming conditions (for plants).”
The first phase of construction for Southside BIZ is expected to begin in October, and without the closure of any roads. Santer said the effect on local businesses will be minimal and believes it will be worth it for the project’s benefits.
“There’s been a lot of construction occurring in the area already,” Santer said. “The median construction might have a much smaller impact than the larger developments on traffic flow, but ultimately it is for the betterment and improvement of that area.”
Summer News Editor Reese Kizy can be reached at reesekiz@umich.edu.
