OXFORD TWP. – Legacy 925 owner Christian Mills cleared two hurdles last week in his efforts to open a theater and event center inside his 208,000-square-foot building at 925 N. Lapeer Rd.

Township planning commissioners voted 4-0 approve, with conditions, an amended site plan for Legacy 925 containing this new 9,000-square-foot use with a 500-person capacity.

The theater/event center is one part of an overall entertainment expansion that includes a restaurant/bar, go-kart track and bowling alley at Legacy.

As of Tuesday afternoon, 774 people had signed a petition in favor of having a theater/event center. It was started by Mills on the website www.change.org.

“There’s a lot of people in this community that really support the event center and feel like it will be an asset to the community,” Mills said.

Commissioners also voted 4-0 to grant a parking waiver that reduced the required number of spaces from the 810 required by the zoning ordinance to the 516 that currently exist on site.

Voting in favor of both motions were commissioners Tom Berger, Jack Curtis, Jonathan Nold and Mike Spisz.

Absent from the meeting were Chairman Mike Young and commissioners Kallie Roesner-Meyers and Ed Hunwick.

Parking

Under the zoning ordinance, if all of the uses inside Legacy 925 were required to provide their own parking areas, a total of 810 spaces would be required.

The number of parking spaces required is calculated based on the square footage of each use. How the building space is used determines whether gross or usable square footage is employed in the calculation.

Mills believes his existing 516 spaces are enough to meet Legacy’s needs.

“We’ve yet to fill even half of our parking lot,” he said.

Based on the parking analysis he conducted, the “maximum anticipated peak hour parking demand” at Legacy 925 would occur on Monday through Wednesday and require 512.5 spaces.

Mills noted in his parking analysis, a “full” (i.e. 500 people) theater and event center was factored in all the calculations.

“We didn’t . . . take any shortcuts or try to really manipulate this information,” he said. “I think we gave it a true and fair estimate of what we’re going to utilize.”

During the other days of the week, that peak hour demand in Mills’ analysis, ranges from 447.5 spaces on Sunday to 486 spaces on Thursday and Friday.

“We feel that almost in every circumstance, we’ll be under the maximum required,” Mills said.

Mills compared Legacy to existing uses in downtown Oxford.

In his mind, “probably one of the most significant comparisons” is the Oxford 7 movie theater, which has seating for 686 people and 162 public parking spaces that are shared with other businesses, including three restaurants, in downtown’s southeast quadrant.

The 24th Street Sports Tavern was used as another example. According to Mills, it has an occupancy of 160 and shares 173 public parking spaces with surrounding businesses, including four other restaurants, in the southwest quadrant.

“Sometimes it gets tight, but all those businesses have been operating successful(ly) for a very long time,” he said.

Just in case Legacy ever needs additional spaces, Mills noted he’s been talking with representatives from the Meijer store on the east side of M-24 about potentially using some of its lot for overflow parking.

“We’ve asked them for 150 spots,” he said.

Whether that materializes or not, remains to be seen.

“We weren’t able to get a finalized agreement and I’m not sure that we will,” Mills told commissioners.

If there are ever times when Legacy’s parking lot is maxed out, Mills believes it won’t create any problems.

“Just like any other business, when the parking lot’s full, people don’t come in,” he said. “If you can’t parking at a Meijer parking lot because you want to go shopping, you find another place to go shopping.”

“The reality is we have 516 spaces and we’ve yet to see half that parking lot full, but if it’s full, I imagine they’ll go somewhere else for dinner or entertainment,” Mills noted.

Township Planner Matthew Lonnerstater, of the Ann Arbor-based Carlisle/Wortman Associates, Inc., found the requested parking waiver, from 810 to 516 spaces, “to be acceptable,” according to his Feb. 13 review letter.

Lonnerstater conducted his own parking analysis and found the “maximum peak hour parking demand” to range from a high of 590 spaces Monday through Wednesday to a low of 489 spaces on Sunday. On Saturday, it’s 545 spaces.

“Based on our analysis, the existing parking areas are deficient in meeting the maximum weekday peak hour demand by 74 spaces and Saturday parking demand by 29 spaces,” he wrote.

However, Lonnerstater recognized that his parking calculations, which were based on the usable square footage of the various uses in Legacy 925 “can, in certain circumstances, produce inflated parking space requirements.”

He cited the go-kart facility as an example. It’s 29,750 square feet and per the ordinance, it would be required to have 101 parking spaces.

“However, per (Mills), the track can only accommodate ten riders at a time, with the peak hour parking demand more realistically hovering around 20 to 30 spaces,” Lonnerstater wrote.

Lonnerstater told commissioners he thought Mills’ use of comparable businesses and parking lots in downtown Oxford was a good correlation to Legacy’s situation.

“In downtown Oxford, you have a variety of different uses that are operating at different hours (and) are sharing public parking,” he said.

Based on Mills’ analysis, Lonnerstater said, “There would be enough parking at 516 spaces to accommodate all of the different uses (at Legacy) at all the different hours.”

Commissioner Curtis said he does not believe Mills, as a businessman, “wants to intentionally create an environment where people don’t want to come in” due to a lack of parking.

He also believes the potential for “illegal parking (around Legacy 925) is almost nonexistent.”

” I don’t believe there’s a threat to neighboring lots or neighboring neighborhoods for that use,” he said. “I don’t think they’re going to be parking in Stony Lake and walking a half a mile up to the Legacy Center.”

Curtis noted if more on-site parking was ever needed on the Legacy property, Mills could transform the current septic field into a lot. The field is going to be abandoned as Mills is being required by Oakland County to connect Legacy 925 to the township sewer system (more on this later in the story).

As for the possibility of Meijer allowing off-site Legacy parking there, Curtis stressed if that happens, Mills should provide transportation back and forth across M-24 “to mitigate any safety concerns.”

Finishing what was previously required

Concerns were raised that Mills has still not finished work on his site that the planning commission required in its previous approval. Outstanding items included exterior lighting, landscaping and the parking lot.

Township Engineer Jim Sharpe told commissioners he understands that Legacy “is kind of a moving target,” but “you’re amending a final site plan when previous improvements from the other site plan haven’t even been completed yet.”

Commissioner Spisz said these outstanding issues were giving him some “heartburn” when it came to the idea of granting another approval.

“Part of me feels that some of (the work is) not happening quite fast enough,” he said.

In response, Mills said he has “every intention of completing” the work and has even put up a $150,000 bond with the township.

“We have a pretty significant bond to ensure that we complete it,” he said. “It isn’t because we’re trying to avoid it, I promise you.”

Mills told commissioners he has a “whole folder” of contracts with an electrician, landscaper, paving company, etc. All of these contracts were signed last year with the idea that the work would be completed and although there have been delays along the way, his goal is to get it all done, he said.

“I’m not trying to skate (on) this in any way, shape or form,” he said. “If you’d like to see the contracts, I brought them here with me tonight.”

Hooking up to the public sewer

The Oakland County Health Division (OCHD) is requiring Legacy 925 to discontinue using its private septic system and connect to the township’s public sewer system.

“Connection to the Oxford Township sewer system must be completed and approved,” wrote Anthony Drautz, administrator for OCHD’s Department of Health and Human Services, in a Feb. 8 letter to Mills.

The letter was sent following a Feb. 8 meeting that Mills had with OCHD representatives and local officials to discuss his proposed restaurant/bar, theater/event center, go-kart track and bowling alley.

His plans hit a snag in December when the OCHD issued a stop work order on this proposed expansion.

At the time, the OCHD informed Mills that it “cannot approve the additions for the proposed food service operation and entertainment center” because Legacy’s septic system “is near capacity and the addition” of these new uses “may exceed the capacity.”

The OCHD stated “the existing on-site sewage disposal system is undersized for the proposed usage” and “the proposed flow in gallons per day would exceed the allowable capacity of the current on-site sewage disposal system.”

In his Feb. 8 letter, Drautz informed Mills that “prior to the lifting of the stop work order,” he must “provide documentation from Oxford Township verifying the approval of plans and specifications for connection to (the) Oxford Township public sewer system with verification of payment.”

“Included in this submittal is to be an expected time-frame to complete (the) connection,” Drautz wrote.

Later in the letter, Drautz stated that “prior to operational approval” for Legacy’s proposed “food service operations,” the “connection to the Oxford Township sewer system must be completed and approved.”

A couple days prior to meeting with the OCHD, the township’s water and sewer committee voted to assign Legacy a total of 35.73 Residential Equivalent Units (REUs) based on its current and future sewer usage.

An REU is defined as the average quantity of water consumed or wastewater discharged from a typical single-family home. Single-family homes each have a value of 1 REU, whereas businesses may be assigned multiple REUs depending on the type of services they provide.

The analysis conducted by the township engineer determined that Legacy’s current usage equates to 12.76 REUs, while the proposed expansions equal 22.97 REUs.

The go-kart track was assigned 1.2 REUs, the 500-seat theater/event center was allocated 5 REUs, the 90-seat restaurant 11.17 REUs, the 100-seat bar 4 REUs and the bowling alley 1.6 REUs.

To connect to the municipal sewer system, the township charges $3,500 per REU. Based on the 35.73 REUs it’s been assigned, Legacy 925 had to pay $125,055 in tap fees.

A Feb. 16 check for that amount was submitted to the township treasurer.

“We’ve paid our tap fee,” Mills said.

But Mills will also have to pay to connect to the existing 10-inch sanitary sewer line on the McDonald’s restaurant property next door to the Legacy property.

His plans for this must still be approved by the township and county.

“I don’t want you guys to think that because the tap fee was paid that the design of this has been approved yet,” Sharpe told planning commissioners. “They haven’t submitted anything to us at this time.”