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Livonia City Hall at 33000 Civic Center Drive will be torn down as a part of the city’s long-range plan to offer up more than 20 acres of property near Five Mile and Farmington roads to developers to create a downtown.
Livonia residents will be asked to weigh in on whether the city should issue $150 million in bonds to pay for municipal construction projects, many of which are connected to its pursuit of building a downtown.
The city is in the process of moving its civic operations off of 27 acres it owns at Five Mile and Farmington roads to make way for future development of what it hopes will be a vibrant residential, commercial and community anchor point.
The Livonia bond proposal will be on the ballot in the Aug. 5 primary election as a result of a unanimous vote by Livonia City Council members Monday.
The city would repay the bond over 25 years through the use of property taxes, which would cost the average homeowner less than $12 per month, the city said in a press release.
Building a new police station is a key phase in Livonia’s broader plans to move operations from its existing civic complex to make way for future development.
Credit: Screenshot
A conceptual rendering of the proposed vision for Civic Center looking west across Farmington Road into the proposed residential neighborhood from the Livonia 21 master plan.
The first phase was moving the senior center at 15218 Farmington Road to connect to the nearby Jack E. Kirksey Livonia Community Recreation Center. The $28 million project is underway and expected to be completed in December.
The second phase of the project focuses on tearing down buildings, including city hall, a vacant courthouse, the nearby Sam’s Place Family Restaurant — the city owns the building and leases it to the business — and the current senior center, opening up more than nine acres at the site.
City hall operations would move east to a new building to be constructed closer to the city’s new courthouse at 32765 Five Mile Road. The new city hall project will be paid for by leveraging a $45 million bond and is to be completed by December 2026, Brosnan previously said to Crain’s.
The next phase will be to build a new police station closer to the Livonia courthouse.
Moving all of the necessary buildings is scheduled to be completed by 2028; from there, opportunities for development would open up, Brosnan said previously to Crain’s.
Credit: Screenshot
A view looking southeast from the intersection of Five Mile and Farmington roads in Livonia in 2023 of city-owned property.
The goal of the City Center is to create an environment that’s “rich with residential opportunities.” This includes housing, programming with central gathering and park space, a revitalized library, and bikeable and walkable areas that extend from Five Mile Road to Hubbard Street to where the Livonia Senior Center and recreation center are.
“It’s meant to function very differently in the city, and this is a transformative process that’s designed to make sure that our kids are coming back to Livonia to live,” Brosnan said to Crain’s in February. “So all of this will be pulled together with a lot residential opportunities, things like townhouses, condominiums, apartments, designed to attract more young people and find options for some of our older folks to be living in the city, and then built around retail and a restaurant community and a lot of outdoor activated space.”
Once the land becomes available there will be many ways to build out the property to this vision. This could include the sale of the land through RFPs and RFQs, lead opportunities and partnerships, Brosnan said to Crain’s in February. She noted the project doesn’t have one fixed solution but Livonia is looking to meet a lot of its objectives by creating a city center that will “withstand the test of time.”
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