Business View Civil & Municipal | July 2022

135 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 3, ISSUE 7 Housing Flats Program. They’ve already created 400 units of workforce housing and expect the third phase to start in 2023. As Hofert attests, “The city is constantly working toward fulfilling its goals across the board. One of our goals that we highlighted in our Master Plan was to provide a diverse housing stock as we continue to grow.” Wyoming has a very healthy industrial base, including the General Motors plant and its largest employers are the University of Michigan Health West, Gordon Food Service, and UPS, along with the municipal government and seven school districts. The city also works closely with its Chamber of Commerce to bring programs to businesses seeking assistance. During the 2008, recession one of the GM plants in the city closed, leaving an 80-acre brownfield. The city worked with a few different developers with no luck, but managed to have the property transferred to the municipality and remediate the soil. In 2016 the property was cleared. Wyoming then collaborated with Franklin Partners three years ago to redevelop the site. The partnership slowed through the pandemic and eventually Wyoming sold the property to Franklin Partners, but retained the ability to dictate what type of project they wanted to see on the property. Holt notes, “The site on 36th Street is geared toward manufacturing. Our goal from the beginning has been advanced manufacturing on that site. That is what we’re looking for.” On the other side of the street is a five-acre piece of property that used to be a parking lot for the factory, but has been used by the nearby schools as a parking lot for their sports field. The City of Wyoming and Franklin Partners are redeveloping that site as a Farmers’ and Community Market with outdoor and indoor vendor space – at a cost of $1.5 million to Franklin Partners. The parking lot can also be WYOMING, MI CHIGAN