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Credit: Suburban Collection Showplace
This rendering shows plans for the Novi City West development, which the owners of the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi are planning to build next to the convention center.
The owner of the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi is rolling out an ambitious proposal for a mixed-use development anchored by a 225-room hotel, more than 400 housing units, a grocery store and a restaurant.
Blair Bowman, who has steadily expanded the conference center off of I-96 since buying it more than 30 years ago, said the roughly $270 million project would revitalize the Grand River Avenue corridor — but it hinges on public funding.
The development, dubbed Novi City West, is plotted for about 50 acres of land west of the 600,000-square-foot convention center on both sides of Grand River that Bowman has been acquiring since the late 1990s. A 126-room Hyatt Place hotel was added to the east side of the complex a few years ago, but Bowman said a new hotel is needed to lure and retain large events.
“The only way that this works is the Transformational Brownfield Program. It makes it all viable,” Bowman told Crain’s in an interview.
Credit: Suburban Collection Showplace
This rendering shows plans for a Cambria hotel next to the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi as part of a new development called Novi City West.
The planned project on Grand River between Taft and Beck roads would include a pedestrian bridge over Grand River connecting the project elements, and aligns with the city’s redevelopment vision of the corridor when it established the Grand River Avenue Corridor Improvement Authority in 2017, Bowman said.
The development would create 700 temporary construction jobs and 150-200 permanent jobs, according to project officials. The proposal so far has the backing of local officials, including the county executive and the Novi mayor.
The brownfield incentives program, which reimburses developers with tax revenue generated from a completed project, has become one of the hottest tax breaks for big developments under a state Legislature averse to upfront cash grants. Bedrock and General Motors Co. are also seeking brownfield incentives for an overhaul of the Renaissance Center in Detroit.
The program has supported developments from the $150 million Factory Yards in Grand Rapids to the $1.4 billion Hudson’s Detroit project in Detroit. However, the incentive has hit its cap and would need lawmaker approval to be expanded.
Bowman believes Novi City West is an ideal applicant. The property was formerly home to heavy industrial use and road-building companies, serving as a contractor yard during the construction of I-275. The land requires environmental remediation and includes a dozen dilapidated structures that need to be demolished or rehabilitated.
The Novi City West project includes:
Ohio-based Geis Construction will handle architecture, engineering, design and overall coordination on multiple facets of the project, including the hotel, Central Park South, the grocery mixed-use development and possibly The Mix rehab.
Credit: Suburban Collection Showplace
This rendering shows plans for a Cambria Hotel next to the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi.
If the project secures state incentives, projected to be a value between $100 million and $200 million over 20-plus years, groundbreaking could happen by summer 2026. That would put the hotel, restaurant, brewery and grocery store on pace for completion by the end of 2027. All in, the project could be done by 2030 or 2031, Bowman said.
Suburban Collection Showplace stands to immediately benefit if it achieves the hotel deadline.
Informa, the world’s largest events producer, promised to launch a major new B2B event at the convention center in 2028 if it has a new hotel to accommodate attendees, Bowman said. That would represent a big business rebound.
The showplace took a major financial blow last year when it lost one of its biggest revenue generators, the Informa-produced Battery Show, which moved to Huntington Place in Detroit because it outgrew the suburban events center. While the loss hurt, keeping the show local was important for the region. As Bowman sees it, there’s plenty of convention activity to go around, and Detroit and the suburbs root for each other.
Claude Molinari, president and CEO of Visit Detroit, which oversees Huntington Place, said in a statement that his organization supports Novi City West and added that the lack of on-site hotel rooms is an obstacle for attracting events — an issue that has also afflicted Detroit.
“The proposed development of the Novi City West project would be a gamechanger for the city of Novi, Oakland County and the Southeast Michigan region,” Molinari said in the statement. “Suburban Collection Showplace is a tremendous community asset, with venue resources to host industry-leading meetings, conferences, and events. But the lack of on-site hotel rooms prevents the facility from securing many of the events that would lead to greater economic impact and community engagement.”
Novi Mayor Justin Fischer called the project an “exciting, strategic opportunity” for the city and the region.
“This visionary project, centered around the Suburban Collection Showplace, builds on one of our community’s most dynamic assets and creates a powerful engine for tourism, economic growth, and regional prominence,” Fischer said in a statement.
The project finance stack is still being finalized, but it includes conventional bank loans and private investment from each of the developers involved, including Bowman, who plans to put in tens of millions in equity investment. It has not been decided how the brownfield incentive, should it be secured, would be monetized.
Bowman said the Suburban Collection Showplace already draws more than 2 million visitors yearly and drives hundreds of millions of dollars in economic impact. Novi City West would multiply it, Bowman said, and he hopes to demonstrate that to state decision-makers.
“Multiple Super Bowls every year, year in and year out, is what the showplace already drives into Novi, Oakland County, the region and the state, and that will be expanded with the new hotel, very conservatively by 35% to 40%, so that’s something we’ll be excited to share,” he said.
The Transformational Brownfield Program funds large-scale development projects through things like state property taxes, state sales taxes on construction materials, state income taxes on construction labor and permanent employees at completed buildings and income taxes on residents of new residential properties.
Earlier this year, the Michigan Strategic Fund approved a $79.2 million TBP package for The Exchange, a nearly $106 million redevelopment and new construction effort on approximately 7.5 acres at the northeast corner of West Huron Street and Woodward Avenue around downtown Pontiac.
— Crain’s Detroit Business Senior Reporter Kirk Pinho contributed to this report.
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