By Jessica Mathews / news@whmi.com


A project to revamp a mostly vacant office building in the City of Howell has been granted final approvals.

The Planning Commission met Wednesday night and unanimously granted site plan approval for what will be known as The 645 Building on Grand River. The mostly vacant 1950’s office building was formerly occupied by Citizens Insurance. A multi-level addition with a primarily glass atrium will be constructed in the rear of the building, which will become the artificial front and serve as the new entryway from the parking lot in back. There are no specific tenants as of yet but the vision is medical or office uses.

Applicant and building owner Joe Schimizzi said an outside sitting area will be added and improvements made to the exterior of the building with paint and color variation. There will also be a three-story elevator and three-story stairwell access through the atrium into the building. The property is zoned as office district and surrounded by residential development. A mix between general office and medical tenants is expected.

Schimizzi said he will be beautifying the site and is big on landscaping and comments were made that the site already looks better following basic clean-up work.

Commission Chair Maryanne Vukonich said she liked the glass addition and felt it was a good example of a modern building but in her personal opinion, she didn’t prefer having different colors for each floor and felt the proposed two-tone took away from the modern look.

Schimizzi said it was originally designed as a modern 1950’s building, which is becoming popular again with hard lines and clean lines. He said they’re not going to necessarily change the material but provide some color depth and noted there are some repairs that need to be made to the exterior and they want to bring some continuity to it – adding he felt the atrium fits in nicely and the commission agreed. Schimizzi noted some changes to the parking area were done to beautify a lot of black space in the lot but also for circulation in anticipation of potential medical uses going in and awning allows for drop-offs for patients or the elderly.

The majority of the conversation at the meeting centered on parking. Schimizzi said the plan is to focus on the first floor, which is actually the ground floor or middle floor, where they’ll be making roughly $250,000 in mechanical upgrades. He said they don’t have parking calculations yet, which he feels will be dictated by the uses. Schimizzi said they want to test the market and see what comes in before determining plans for the basement and top floor but thinks the demand for tenancy will dictate parking needs.

Schimizzi said he’s very excited about the project and sees a tremendous amount of potential and wasn’t aware of any concerns from neighbors. Schimizzi added that he has also purchased 2.5 acres directly across the street, which was a lot that Citizens used for parking and he intends to land bank that in case they need to use it. Schimizzi said he didn’t want to over-park or under-park the building and knows it’s important to get it correct but that’s why he’s purchased the 2.5 acres.

The Commission agreed to have staff review the parking calculations before permits are issued, which will be reflected in the site plan to demonstrate ordinance requirements are met. If the extra land bank property is not needed, then it could be removed with a site plan amendment.

Commissioner Robert Spaulding commented it will be nice to see the building developed and used after so many years while Mayor Nick Proctor thanked Schimizzi for his significant investments in the City.