If you travel Woodward Avenue south of East Grand Boulevard regularly like I do, you can’t miss the building with “Not For Sale” spray-painted on its frontage.

We’ll have to see if that actually holds true.

Peter Allen, president of Ann Arbor-based mixed-use urban developer Peter Allen & Associates, and three investment partners have purchased a building, have another under contract and are trying to buy the remaining buildings on the block between Milwaukee and Baltimore avenues for a redevelopment project that would add new apartments, retail and office space to that area of New Center.

Allen — also an adjunct faculty member of the University of Michigan’s Stephen M. Ross School of Business and the A. Alfred Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning for more than three decades — said he and three former students have purchased the building at 6408 Woodward Ave. two months ago and have the corner building at 6402 Woodward Ave. under contract with the city, with plans to close on the deal by early October.

The developers would add a third floor to the building at 6402 Woodward for a configuration with first-floor retail and 12 second- and third-floor apartments. At 6408 Woodward, the group would have first-floor retail, second-floor office space and three floors for 36-44 apartments. All told, the project would bring 48-56 new units to the market.

Construction is expected to begin on the $14 million project in the fall, with completion by the time the M-1 Rail project is completed in 2017, Allen said.

The project was originally conceived by three former students — Clarke Lewis, Dang Duong and Myles Hamby — during a real estate development course in the fall 2013 semester. Lewis received his master's degree in architecture; Duong an MBA and juris doctorate; and Hamby, a master's of urban planning.