Adrian planning commissioners support housing development plan at former Bixby Hospital site
The city commission meets in downtown Adrian at Adrian City Chambers, 159 E. Maumee St., unless otherwise noted. Regular meetings start at 6 p.m.
The commission will be tasked with reviewing a planned unit development (PUD) proposal that seeks to construct a housing community of 63 for-rent, market rate single-family homes, varying from one- to two-bedrooms. The proposed residential structures are not to be considered as low-income housing, it was clarified during last week's monthly meeting of the Adrian planning commission, which met March 4 to inspect the project's final development plan.
The former Bixby Hospital was at 818 Riverside Ave., since June 1957 and across from the Adrian High School campus. It had been vacant since 2020 when it was shuttered and replaced by ProMedica Charles and Virginia Hickman Hospital in Adrian Township.
Initial talks about tearing down Bixby Hospital and constructing rental houses on the property began in January 2024 when real estate developer Michael Collier told the city commission, he secured a contract with ProMedica to redevelop the property and tear down the hospital.
It took most of 2024, but in early December — and after a handful of meetings between Collier, his business partner Scott Gibson, and the planning commission — demolition started on the hospital. Bixby Hospital has since nearly been completely razed with demolition crews taking the building down in sections to offset noise for nearby residents.
From December 2024: Demolition plans announced by ProMedica for vacant Bixby Hospital; demo work starts Dec. 5
Flint-based RJ Industrial Recycling is contracted with ProMedica and Collier and Gibson — who are partners in the real estate development firm — Collier-Gibson, a firm that focuses on creative adaptive reuse and ground-up development projects in the United States with a current concentration in the Midwest, to complete the demolition.
Collier-Gibson specializes in hotels, multifamily units, office, industrial, retail, restaurants and self-storage projects.
Being the third time the Adrian planning commissioners requested Collier-Gibson to come back with an amended development plan, it didn't take long at last week's meeting for the commissioners to give their final approval of the housing project.
The PUD was unanimously approved by the planning commission in a 5-0 vote, albeit with two members absent from the meeting in Chad Johnson and Brian Watson.
The approval came with a few minor contingencies that need to be addressed going forward:
Providing the planning commission with a lighting diagram of the housing community.
Providing a complete PUD development schedule/timeline.
Providing a report in good terms about the project from the Lenawee County Drain Commission.
Providing a notice of responsibility that the property owner will be responsible for all common grounds maintenance.
Beaubien Companies Inc., in Adrian will be contracted for landscaping and maintenance work at the community to 'create common maintenance and continuity to the site,' Gibson explained.
Any action taken by the planning commission is in the form of a recommendation to the Adrian City Commission, which has the final review and say of whether a project is ready for approval or needs to be sent back for additional work.
'As we have discussed time after time after time, this (housing proposal) addresses this to a great extent,' Planning Commission Chairman Mike Jacobitz said of the proposal providing housing options in Adrian. 'There's always the possibility that if that land lies fallow, who knows what becomes of it. Here's something that we have some control over and addresses an identified need.'
The contingencies that were included in the final approval are 'relatively minor,' Jacobitz told The Daily Telegram, and have nothing to do with the housing concept itself.
The Bixby Hospital property is currently zoned office/service. With an approval from the city commission at their March 17 meeting, it will be updated to planned unit development. PUD is almost an 18-month process for approval, Jacobitz said. A planned unit development requires the approval of both the planning commission and the city commission as it changes the ordinance and the zoning of a particular property.
'I like the plan. I think it's good. Obviously, we need housing in the city of Adrian so I'm very pleased to see you're moving forward with it,' Adrian City Commissioner and Planning Commissioner Gordon Gauss said during last week's meeting.
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A handful of neighboring residents adjacent to the Bixby Hospital property approached the planning commission last week and raised a variety of concerns about the project including landscaping, how the development doesn't address missing middle housing in Adrian, traffic, population and property maintenance.
Gibson said he expects there to be at least 150 people residing within the residential community. Ideally, and what makes the most sense, he added, is constructing all units at the same time.
'Presently, we are contemplating doing it in one shot,' Gibson said when asked by the planning commission if construction on the development will be completed all at once or in stages. 'It is possible that it could be done in two phases. We've looked at doing maybe 24 units and leasing those and then doing the balance, but that hasn't been finalized. We're entertaining both scenarios at present.'
Wherever visual barriers are needed, those are being added, Gibson said addressing one of the landscaping concerns. More vegetation will be added to the site to ensure it is attractive and an enhancement.
Julie Jungwirth, an Adrian resident on McKenzie Street, provided the most feedback for the planning commission at last week's meeting, saying she was 'at a loss' because of the lack of an open house, information or presentation about the housing development at the Bixby site.
'I don't think enough was done to present this,' she told the planning commission.
From April 2024: Plans to build rental housing on former Bixby Hospital site continue
According to Michigan statute, information about zoning changes will be notified to those who are within 300 feet around the parcel. Information about planning commission meetings, topics of discussion and presentation are published in a newspaper of regular circulation — like The Daily Telegram — and on the city of Adrian's website, adriancity.com.
Discussions of the Bixby redevelopment have been taking place at planning commission meetings for more than six months, Gauss responded. Over those six months, there have been at least three presentations by Collier-Gibson on the development, which the planning commission has requested additional information and adjustments to the plan nearly each time.
'This is not any big secret,' Gauss said. 'People have been asking when the hospital was going to come down, what was going to go there, and it's been clearly explained, but yet we are still getting questions like yours. But to say we're not being transparent; that's just not the case.'
Now that the hospital has been leveled, residents should expect continued noise from concrete grinding, material sorting and hauling truck traffic, ProMedica said in a statement. Road closures should not be anticipated during the process.
Demolition crews from RJ Industrial Recycling told The Daily Telegram they expect to be on pace with ProMedica's initial schedule of having all demo and debris removal activities completed by April. Briskey Brothers Construction from Tecumseh also is on site at the former hospital working alongside RJ Industrial Recycling to haul away scrap concrete.
— Contact reporter Brad Heineman at bheineman@lenconnect.com or follow him on X, formerly Twitter: @LenaweeHeineman.
This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: Adrian planning commission supports development at Bixby Hospital site
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