ANN ARBOR, MI — Standing outside a 19th-century house he owns downtown, Kurt Berggren peers up at a cloudy, fall-afternoon sky — at least what he can still see of it.

The retired civil rights lawyer is taking inventory of the skyscrapers, as he calls them, that now surround the historic, two-story structure that used to be his law office at 412 E. Huron St.

There’s a 10-story high-rise to the south, another that stands 13 stories to the east, beyond an adjacent rental house, and another 14-story building across the street to the north.

A nine-story hotel is now proposed where an auto repair shop stands just west of Berggren’s house, which he rents to a small business.

“We’re going to be completely surrounded on all four sides,” he laments.

Kurt Berggren poses at his property at 412 E. Huron St. in Ann Arbor on Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2019.Jacob Hamilton

With apartments catering mainly to University of Michigan students, the three towers that have risen around Berggren’s house in the last decade added more than 1,300 beds downtown, part of a housing boom that’s dramatically changing Ann Arbor’s skyline.

More than a dozen high-rises have sprouted in the last 16 years, bringing thousands more residents downtown, along with new ground-floor retail and restaurant spaces.

Berggren’s house, along with the house next to it, is protected under a city historic district. At this point, he contends the historic character of the area has been destroyed by high-rises, and the property should be allowed to shed its protected status.

Then he could do what others have done: sell his land for what it may be worth as another future high-rise site.

“It’s considerably different,” he said of the neighborhood, recalling one- and two-story buildings that once stood nearby. “When we bought this house 20 years ago, it legitimately could have been called a historic district … but this whole block has changed so much.”

A decade of densification

Ann Arbor leaders embarked on a mission to densify the city’s core just over a decade ago, adopting a new Downtown Plan and new zoning to incentivize more residential high-rises.

They had high hopes of transforming a historically commercial area into a more lively, mixed-use, urban neighborhood, while preserving rural space outside the city under the greenbelt program.

The plan is working.

Ann Arbor is now in the midst of the biggest downtown housing boom in the city’s history.

“For a long time, Ann Arbor was held in this limbo: Are we going to be this relatively small, Midwestern college town, or are we going to be a city?” said John Hieftje, the city’s mayor from 2000 to 2014.

“We made a decision, with a whole lot of input, that we’re going to be a city, and so that sort of changed things.”

John Hieftje, former mayor of Ann Arbor, poses in the Ann Arbor News offices on Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2019.Jacob Hamilton

Buildings can be as tall as 180 feet in core areas, and up to 60 feet in transitional zones, city leaders decided in 2009.

Developers have responded by proposing a wave of high-rises and mid-rises pushing those limits.

The housing boom actually started before the zoning changes, but the new rules made it easier to build bigger.

Since 2004, 16 apartment developments brought roughly 4,800 new beds to the downtown/campus area.

That’s not counting some smaller-scale projects, or the nearly 1,800 apartment beds planned or under construction.

UM also added 1,080 beds with two new dormitories, while the number of new condominiums in the downtown area since 2001 is approaching 400, with about 140 more in the pipeline.

Among the new downtown residents is Scott Christopher, a 27-year-old UM grad who works for tech company Duo Security.

He moved back to Ann Arbor in 2018 after working for Google out west, and now lives in an 11-story condo high-rise on Ashley Street.

“My commute in California used to be two hours to go 20 miles, so this is much better,” he said of his short walk to work, adding he rarely uses a car. “Everything you need is walking distance.”

Christopher likes that Ann Arbor is starting to feel more urban.

“Since I first came here for college 10 years ago, everything just feels more welcoming, feels like it’s modernizing a bit, without losing that Ann Arbor touch,” he said, noting the abundance of local businesses.

Ann Arbor last saw a wave of apartment high-rises in the 1960s. For decades afterward, there wasn’t much residential growth downtown except for a handful of condo developments and some conversions of the upper levels of commercial buildings into residential lofts.

Then in the early 2000s, the first downtown apartment high-rise in decades came along.

The eight-story Corner House Lofts, proposed at the corner of State and Washington streets where an Olga’s Kitchen stood, reignited community debate about tall buildings.

Developer Howard Frehsee, who ultimately won support for the project, said his daughter attended UM and he was concerned about poor living conditions in student rental houses.

“These kids are really getting a bad deal. Maybe I can do something with that corner and change the direction,” he recalled thinking then.

Hieftje, who voted against the project because he didn’t think it fit with other buildings on State Street, said he’s glad the downtown has developed upward since then, making it feel more like a city.

Downtown Ann Arbor is four or five times more lively today than it was decades ago, Hieftje said.

“There were weeknights … when you could have bowled on Main Street right down the sidewalk and not hit anybody, and it’s so different now, and it’s so much fun to be in Ann Arbor,” he said.

Downtown approaching 10,000 residents

The Downtown Development Authority in 2013 estimated 4,849 residents were living within its boundaries, up 56% since 2000.

As of July 2018, that number was up to 7,670, representing about 6% of the city’s population.

Since then, roughly 1,500 more beds have been added in the downtown area, and new high-rises report being 99-100% occupied.

With several more high-rises in the works, downtown appears to be on its way to surpassing the 10,000-resident mark, a point at which some experts believe it could attract more amenities, like a large grocery.

Historically, downtown Ann Arbor was not an in-demand residential destination, said DDA Executive Director Susan Pollay.

“It was where you went and did your shopping, you went to church — you know, you did a lot of things — but you weren’t living down there,” she said. “And so that’s a big deal.”

Susan Pollay, executive director of the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority, poses in the DDA's offices on Thursday, Oct. 24, 2019.Jacob Hamilton

There are also thousands more people working downtown. The DDA estimated 29,530 jobs in 2018, up from about 26,000 six years earlier.

Pollay said it’s been exciting to see a growing number of tech companies lay roots and expand downtown, as well as entrepreneurial ventures like Literati Bookstore and Today Clothing, which both opened in 2013.

“In the last decade, I think we saw a resurgence of independent retail,” she said, expressing hopes for more office space next.

Mayor Christopher Taylor said he hopes to see even more people living downtown in the years to come.

“I’m proud of our downtown,” he said. “We have an amazing community, but what attracts a lot of people to Ann Arbor is our downtown, and so I think our downtown is an incredible asset.”

Lack of affordability still a concern

City leaders bemoan a lack of affordable and workforce housing development amid the building boom.

While some new housing has attracted workers and retirees, it has mostly catered to a growing number of UM students.

A majority of downtown residents are under the age of 25, according to the DDA.

“Students are obviously an important part of the Ann Arbor community and I’m glad they’re living downtown,” Taylor said. “I want to see more buildings and I wish we had more buildings that were focused and designed for the rest of us.”

Over the last 15 years, UM enrollment has grown by 8,557 students, up 22%, while just under 6,000 beds have been added between new apartments and dorms in the downtown/campus area.

Looking back 20 years, enrollment has grown by more than 10,000 students, with over 48,000 now.

Council Member Zachary Ackerman, D-3rd Ward, believes another 4,000 beds are needed to address the influx of students who otherwise compete with other residents for housing.

“This is a huge influx of student population that we just don’t have enough housing for,” he said.

Most of the new downtown housing has been marketed as luxury, with prices to match.

For example, a small studio apartment in a high-rise built in recent years can cost about $2,200 per month, and new downtown condos are selling for more than $500 per square foot.

“I’m highly concerned with the economic segregation that we have in our downtown area,” Council Member Ali Ramlawi, D-5th Ward, said at a recent meeting, calling it “classism.”

Ramlawi, longtime owner of the Jerusalem Garden restaurant, said his downtown falafel business, which expanded to a bigger location in 2015, has benefited from the city’s growth.

But he laments Ann Arbor no longer being the same funky place he fell in love with in the 1980s.

“I miss the creative class that can no longer afford to be downtown,” he said. “There used to be … artists, musicians, poets, activists. That part of our community has been decimated.”

Council voted in November 2019 to change downtown zoning premiums in hopes of encouraging more affordable housing, doing away with incentives for market-rate housing.

The city is also exploring affordable housing on city-owned sites downtown, and more density outside downtown.

Height is still a concern for some residents, as debates around recent high-rise proposals have shown.

As council in November OK’d what could become the seventh high-rise in the South University Avenue area, Council Member Jeff Hayner, D-1st Ward, echoed sentiments held by some longtime residents.

“I’m not a fan of plunging the streets into darkness. I miss my views,” he said.

There’s still a lot more potential future development downtown, Hayner noted.

“South U has given us a little peek at what the realization of downtown zoning is going to be like here in the city,” he said, adding he’s “not a fan of it because I just think it’s getting pretty intense down there.”

Council voted 9-2 in December to OK a 19-story high-rise behind the historic Michigan Theater, clearing the way for the tallest building downtown in more than 50 years.

Ramlawi and Hayner were opposed.

While downtown is still ripe for more growth, more than 60% of the properties have development restrictions, according to the DDA. That includes 43 acres in historic districts, 42 acres of university property, 31 acres of parkland/open space and 26 acres in flood zones.

Hieftje said he’s glad historic protections remain for old parts of downtown like State Street and Main Street.

“Those historic districts are vital,” he said. “That’s another hallmark of vital downtowns is they usually have a preserved, old-style city center. That’s where people want to be.”

Learning to live with high-rises

In large part due to new high-rise construction, the taxable value of downtown properties rose from $382 million to $631 million over the last decade — up nearly $250 million.

There’s been more than $300 million in private investment downtown during that time, the DDA reports.

Some high-rises are now paying more than $2 million per year in property taxes, while several pay $1.3-$1.8 million.

The DDA, which captures a portion of the revenue to reinvest downtown, has seen its annual tax receipts roughly double to more than $7 million in the last decade.

The authority is using that money to fund projects like pedestrian safety, streetscape upgrades and protected bicycle lanes.

There’s a new generation of young people who want a walkable, bikeable, lively environment, and they don’t mind tall buildings, Hieftje said, recalling it was older residents who spoke out against high-rises at public hearings when he was mayor.

“I hope folks will be able to open up their vision a little bit and their concept of what’s going to happen to the city, and recognize that there’s a new generation that’s going to live here,” he said. “We’re going to be passing on and we should be welcoming those folks.”

Berggren, who grew up in Manhattan and has lived in Ann Arbor since the 1970s, said he’s not against tall buildings in general, but he thinks the situation with his Huron Street house is outrageous.

“I mean, it really is bad,” he said. “It reminds me of the New Yorker cartoon that had the little house surrounded on all sides.”

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