New units for armory may be condos

New units for armory may be condos

■ Department of Military Affairs has accepted $405,000 bid for building, planned for 9-11 condominium units.

NEWS PHOTO • FRANCISCO KJOISETH

Ann Arbor's vacant National Guard Armory may be turned into modern condos, if local developer Ed Shaffran gets the OK from historical and zoning officials.

By MICHELE MORIN AUG 2 0 1996

NEWS STAFF REPORTER__________________

Condominium owners could be moving into Ann Arbor’s former National Guard Armory by December 1997, seven years after the building was vacated by the Company D 156 Signal Battalion.

The Michigan Department of Military Affairs has accepted a bid from local developer Ed Shaffran to buy the building for $405,000. He plans to convert the tum-of-the-century armory into nine to 11 condominiums.

Shaffran is locally known for renovating downtown spaces into mid- to high-end loft apartments, one of his most recent projects being lofts in the former Kline’s department store on Main Street.

“We have accepted an offer, and it’s contingent on him getting all his zoning taken care of and plans approved with the state historic district commission,” said Maj. Ti-bor Lanczy, who heads the state’s National Guard facilities management office. “We

have accepted his bid and down payment for it.”

Those contingencies could take the next five months to clear, Shaffran said. He’ll submit preliminary site plans to the city planning commission and state historic district commission early next month. He expects to close the sale and begin construction work in January.

“It’s a neat building because of its character and because it was the armory,” Shaffran said. “You probably wouldn’t build it like that today.”

The local national guard company moved to a new armoiy in Ypsilanti Township in 1989. The state declared the building surplus property in late 1990, prompting a flur-ly of activity over who would move into it.

Ann Arbor, Washtenaw County and Hands On Museum officials were interested in it but couldn’t meet the minimum bid set by the state under a law that mandates surplus property must be sold at market value.

This is actually Shaffran’s second bid on

the building. The first in March 1995 to develop apartments there “didn’t work out economically” for him. Four or five other parties were interested in the armory, but Shaffran was the only one to make an offer, he said.

He decided on condominiums after hearing many prospective tenants on other projects say they’d like to own their homes in-

stead of rent them. Preliminary plans call for about 10 condos, all but one multi-level units. They would range in size from about 1,200 square feet, costing around $125,000, to about 2,500 square feet. And all would take advantage of the building’s historic flair, Shaffran said.

“These would be kind of like a brown-stone, on some of them, because they would

be maybe 20 feet wide and about 40 feet deep, and they would have a lower level that looks out the windows on Fifth Avenue and a main level or second floor, and possibly a third floor loft,” he said:

Many of the condos could take advantage of the 31-foot ceiling at the north end of the building, he explained.

But first, Shaffran needs the approval of Michigan Historic District Commission officials to subdivide the building and tear down a garage added in the 1950s. That space would be used for parking.

He’ll also need city approval to rezone the property at the comer of North Fifth Avenue and Ann Street from public land to a multiple residential classification.

“We anticipate problems, or it wouldn’t be Ann Arbor. But they are not insurmountable,” Shaffran said. “Our biggest concern is whether or not the state is going to let us tear down the garage.”

Construction work won’t be easy, either. Shaffran said the inside of the building will most likely need to be almost completely gutted and rebuilt.

He hopes residents will be moving into the condos by Christmas time next year.