Luxury Apartments to Rise on Former Sears Site
The developers plan to build a grocery store and walkable plaza alongside the community, which will finish construction in 2026.
A joint venture between Hines and Simon Property Group has broken ground on a four-story, 370-unit luxury apartment community located around Briarwood Mall, a one million-square-foot 50-year-old shopping center in Ann Arbor, Mich. With the development, Simon, the mall’s owner, plans to transform a portion of the shopping center into a mixed-use community that will include residential and open-air retail space.
According to reporting from Bridge Michigan, the Briarwood project is taking place at 900 Briarwood circle, the site of a now-demolished 166,000-square-foot Sears department store.
Plans for the redevelopment in Sears’ hometown go back to early 2023, nearly five years after the Briarwood location’s closure, which followed the retailer’s bankruptcy announcement. A year prior, 200 acres around the mall were rezoned for the construction of a downtown-style mixed-use development, according to MLive.
A portion of the development’s funding came from the Hines U.S. Direct Investments program while Northwestern Mutual provided a construction loan. The sponsorships’ amounts were not disclosed.
From bankruptcy to luxury
The new residences at Briarwood Mall are expected to finish construction in 2026. When completed, the community will offer one-, two-and three-bedroom living arrangements featuring exterior balconies, nine-foot ceilings and in-unit washers and dryers. Kitchens at the community will have islands, quartz countertops and all-electric stainless steel appliances.
Alongside the new retail space, amenities at the community will include a fitness center, golf simulator, club room, coworking lounge and club room, in addition to two 13,000-square-foot outdoor patios.
To achieve LEED certification and to bolster sustainability across the property, the developers will install 20,000 square feet worth of solar arrays on the rooftop, which will power everything at the property, save for the individual units. Additionally, the community’s 325-stall private parking garage will include electric vehicle chargers.
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Adjacent to the residential component, Simon and Hines also plan to build a Harvest Market grocery store as well as a walkable plaza. Other retail offerings at the nearby mall include Apple, Urban Outfitters and Bath & Body works.
“The amenitization provided by the nearly one million square feet of the Briarwood Mall’s retail spaces, and the convenience of the new, high-end grocer Harvest Market will further add value to the residents and the community,” explained Brad Soderwall, a managing director at Hines.
Located roughly 100 feet to the northwest of an onramp to the Interstate 94, the Briarwood development lies is roughly three miles to the south of central Ann Arbor, which includes a large portion of the University of Michigan’s flagship campus.
Not Simon’s first redevelopment rodeo
Simon, the nation’s largest owner of shopping malls, had its sights set on redevelopments at its malls for quite some time. According to reporting from Bridge Michigan, the REIT announced earlier this year a five-year, $1.5 billion initiative to redevelop portions of its malls around the nation, located primarily in California and the Pacific Northwest.
In May, Simon unveiled plans to build 850 luxury apartments with AMLI Residential at Fashion Valley, an upscale shopping center in San Diego. That project is expected for completion in 2026.
Hines has also made recent forays into commercial to multifamily redevelopments. In April, the firm started laying the beams of Seraph, a 217-unit multifamily community taking place at the site of South Temple Tower, formerly a 217,000-square-foot office building in Salt Lake City.
