Demolition crews work to take down the former Kmart Corp. headquarters in Troy in a photo from the fall.
The University of Michigan is purchasing land at the site of the former Kmart Corp. headquarters in Troy for a healthcare project.
The university is buying 7.28 acres of vacant land at the 40-acre property at 3100 W. Big Beaver Road and plans to build a multi-specialty ambulatory center for clinical and diagnostic services for Michigan Medicine.
The UM board of regents unanimously approved the purchase of the property for $4.42 million from Forbes/Frankel Troy Ventures LLC. on Thursday.
Development planned for the site “will expand University of Michigan Health in a key market and will improve access for patients in those communities,” UM President Santa Ono said during the regents meeting.
The project will give Ann Arbor-based Michigan Medicine a bigger foothold in Oakland County.
“We are thrilled to announce our plans for a long term presence and commitment to patients in Oakland County, in keeping with our efforts to create a statewide network of care that allows Michiganders the ability to receive our world class care close to home,” Marschall Runge, CEO of Michigan Medicine, dean of the UM Medical School and executive vice president of medical affairs for the University of Michigan, said in a news release.
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Through a partnership with Trinity Health Oakland in Pontiac, University of Michigan Health has a pediatric presence in Oakland County, but the new Troy center will be Michigan Medicine’s first exclusive facility in Oakland County.
The expansion is hoped to take some weight off of the Ann Arbor center and allow better access for patients, Scott Flanders, chief clinical strategy officer for Michigan Medicine, said during a news conference Thursday.
“We're working really hard to try and deliver the access we think patients want and we think they deserve and there's a lot of work going on to maximize that access,” Flanders said. “There are a lot of patients that come from this region to seek care in and around Ann Arbor that we might be able to move some of that to their local communities in and around Oakland and in Troy in particular, where this site is, which would then create some opportunity for some increased capacity of those specialties in and around Ann Arbor.”
UM Regent Jordan Acker, an attorney with Goodman Acker PC, applauded the move.
“As a resident of Oakland County for a long time we have missed out on having Michigan Medicine in our backyard,” Acker said during Thursday's meeting.
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The new site “will provide incredible access to that market but also for my neighbors who are looking for that Michigan Medicine experience without having to travel outside of the county," Acker said. "This is a welcome, necessary and long-needed addition to Michigan Medicine’s portfolio.”
University of Michigan Health has 47,000 employees across its system. Keith Dickey, chief strategy officer for Michigan Medicine, said the new Troy facility will create new jobs for providers, staff and technicians, but he did not provide an estimate of how many.
The system is now in the architectural and planning phase of the facility, Dickey said at the news conference.
“We'll have a period of time now for the more detailed planning and then we'll go back to the regents for approval once we have a more solid sense of what the budget will be,” Dickey said. “But our hope and expectation is that we would break ground sometime next year and that this facility would be open in 2027.”
The former Kmart headquarters has long been vacant and demolition on the hulking former office complex began last fall.
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At its peak, the Kmart property accommodated 5,000 employees. When it was sold in 2005, it had fewer than 1,900, many of whom were transferred to Illinois.
Kmart's last store in Michigan closed in November 2021, ending its run of nearly six decades after its first store opened in 1962 in Garden City. Financial woes hampered the retailer the last two decades; It sought bankruptcy protection in 2002-03 and eventually merged with Sears, Roebuck & Co. in 2004.
This story first appeared in Crain's Detroit Business.
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