"Having this asset in our community will not only retain the businesses here because it shows we care about their nationality (and) their investment in our state, but it will be an incentive for other businesses looking to locate in the U.S."

New businesses "are going to look at Southeast Michigan because of this Asian Village" and because of the local talent in the region, she said.

The project began as a conversation with one of Novi's businesses, One World Market, a subsidiary of global seafood and Asian products supplier True World Group LLC.

The market asked the city and county to help it identify a developer for a prototype market and food hall it wanted to build in Novi. The larger vision for Asian Village evolved from there, with One World Market choosing Aikens as the developer on the project.

The 25,000-square-foot, prototype market and food hall will offer sushi, ramen noodles, bento boxes, an Asian bakery and other goods to anchor the development.

New Jersey-based True World Group, which locally also owns and operates Noble Fish in Clawson, said the success of its current market in Novi and the city's support for Asian and Japanese businesses is why it chose Novi for the new prototype store. It expects that store to serve as the pilot for a national expansion of the concept.

Having an anchor tenant that wants to move forward "is an impetus to get the project off the ground," said Cindy Ciura, a retail consultant who is helping Oakland County identify developers for major retail projects in the county. She is also a consultant to Aikens on the Asian Village and Five & Main projects.

"Having the market there will be a big draw, especially the fact that they want to do a prototype," she said.

To round out the property needed for the village, Aikens is negotiating for the purchase of just more than 3 acres of land surrounding Ecco Tool Co. from the business and separately is in negotiations with residential developers to handle the housing component of the project, which will include about 200 units of apartments and townhomes.

Ecco Tool, a small, family-owned company that manufactures cutting tools, has occupied that property since 1967, 12 years after owner Floyd Peterson's father started the company. The company would continue to operate from its 8,000-square-foot building, selling only the property around it.

"This has been huge for me to let go of part of a family heritage," Peterson said. "If it wasn't a really good project, I wouldn't do it."

It's not about money, Peterson said, but rather about helping out his city and bringing people to the area he considers its downtown.

"This is something the city really wants to see go through. Therefore, it made me take a second look at it," he said.

As planned, the development would be akin to similar retail developments geared largely to Japanese expats on the West Coast, Aikens said.

"One purpose of these developments is to connect individual and families to their homelands so that (they) feel more at home."

Michigan is home to 11,663 Japanese people, per the American Community Survey from 2016, local demographer and Pleasant Ridge Mayor Kurt Metzger said.

The only other Midwestern state to count more Japanese people among its residents is Illinois with 18,355.

Within Michigan, Oakland County is home to just less than half of Michigan's Japanese population, and Novi is the city with the most Japanese residents, just under 2,300. The only Midwestern city with a larger concentration of Japanese people is Chicago, Metzger said.

Japanese residents have made the area around Novi, Northville, Plymouth and Canton Township home because that's where many Japanese research and development centers and companies have located, Metzger said.

"If it's geared toward Japanese, that's the right place to do it," he said.

In the three-mile radius around the Asian Village site, 19 percent of the population is Asian, with an average household income of $119,000, Aikens said. And there are 220,000 Asians living within 50 miles of the Novi site.

Aikens is looking for regional, national and international merchants that serve those populations, he said.

"I've enjoyed doing the leasing at a place like the Village of Rochester Hills; this thing adds a whole new challenge in looking for ... Asian business owners serving their customers," Aikens said. "That's a whole new challenge, which is exciting."

Asian Village is a natural fit for Novi, said Sheryl Walsh-Molloy, director of communications for the city.

In addition to enhancing the city's business retention and attraction efforts, "the village will be a regional destination for all to enjoy and share, as well as a wonderful way to educate and share the Asian culture with others," she said.