A joint venture that includes a West Bloomfield Township real estate investor plans a 19-story apartment tower with 241 apartments in downtown Ann Arbor.

A news release says CA Ventures, based in Chicago, and Cerca Trova LLC, which is registered in Bloomfield to West Bloomfield's Howard Frehsee, has submitted a proposal for the tower and a six-story, 20-unit residential building at 600 E. Washington St. downtown between Division Street to the west and State Street to the east. The site is by 411 Lofts and The Varsity.

Another 6,000 square feet of Washington Street retail space would be built, along with 121 parking spaces on floors two through four, according to a news release earlier this month. Nineteen units would be for those making less than the area median income and some smaller units would be for workforce housing, a release says. Units would range from micro apartments up to five bedrooms.

Frehsee said in a release that the development is "an inclusive housing project to serve the housing needs for the University of Michigan students, post-graduate candidates and alumni as well as Michigan medicine employees and others working downtown."

Minneapolis-based ESG Architecture & Design and Ann Arbor-based J. Bradley Moore & Associates Architects Inc. are working on the project.

The Ann Arbor Design Review Board is expected to consider the proposal next month.

CA Ventures says it has a real estate portfolio spanning the U.S., Europe and Latin America valued at $7.8 billion. Frehsee has worked on projects in Ann Arbor that include Sava's restaurant and the University of Michigan Graham Sustainability Institute, the release says.