Cloudy with snow showers developing after midnight. Low 12F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of snow 40%. Snow accumulations less than one inch..
Cloudy with snow showers developing after midnight. Low 12F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of snow 40%. Snow accumulations less than one inch.
Updated: January 29, 2023 @ 6:25 pm
This diagram provided to Garfield Township shows how the Oleson Foundation proposes rezoning and splitting up property it owns between Rennie School Road and Meadow Lane, just west of U.S. 31. It could become an industrial park with commercial properties, a single large industrial parcel and multifamily housing.

City Government Reporter
This diagram provided to Garfield Township shows how the Oleson Foundation proposes rezoning and splitting up property it owns between Rennie School Road and Meadow Lane, just west of U.S. 31. It could become an industrial park with commercial properties, a single large industrial parcel and multifamily housing.
TRAVERSE CITY — Farmland near a busy corridor and mobile home park could become the area’s newest industrial park, commercial center and housing development.
The Oleson Foundation wants to split its 150-acre property between Rennie School Road and Meadow Lane into dozens of smaller industrial or commercial parcels between U.S. 31 and a planned north-south road, conceptual plans show. The west side of the property would be split between a single 40-acre lot for industry, and a multifamily housing development.
Foundation board member Brad Oleson said plans are preliminary, but the idea so far is to rezone the 40-acre parcel for a service business interested in the land — a confidentiality agreement kept him from saying more for now. The foundation also has a few businesses interested in land along the highway. Those would be the first steps in redeveloping the property.
Garfield Township Planner John Sych said those parcels along the highway are suited to the kind of commercial development being planned there.
“When you get into the interior of the site, the likelihood of general commercial in an interior parcel of that size is probably not likely, other than if you were to build something like a Grand Traverse Mall,” he said at a recent township planning commission meeting.
Commissioners had some questions for Oleson and Bill Crain of Crain Engineering during a conceptual review of the plans, mostly on practicalities such as how the site would be served by water, sewer and stormwater infrastructure.
They also had questions about setbacks and what kind of industry would locate there. Jim Schmuckal, a Realtor, told planners the businesses would be more wholesale, distribution and advanced manufacturing than anything resembling heavy industry.
Sych said later the businesses allowed in general industrial zoning aren’t a bad fit near multifamily residential, and transitions and buffers can create some separation. The road provides one buffer – as could landscaping. Oleson said plans are to leave as much of the tree cover as possible.
What’s now largely farmland for feeding the Oleson’s Food Stores buffalo herd was donated to the Oleson Foundation by Brad’s grandfather in the 1990s, he said. That was done with an eye to reselling the property so the foundation could use the proceeds for its local philanthropy.
Past developments didn’t come to pass, and the foundation took the land back a few times under land-contract terms, Oleson said.
“We’ve always waited for somebody to come along and buy it from us and develop it, and nobody ever has,” he said. “And I came along and said, why don’t we develop it? Why don’t we do this?”
Plans are still to use the net proceeds from the project for the foundation, Oleson said. It’ll be some time before the project comes together. He figured it’ll be a year or more before the new road is constructed. Multifamily housing would be developed in the third and final phase – and just what that would look like has yet to be planned.
Developing the first phase means Traverse Area Model Pilots Society will need to find a new home for one of its two aerodromes, said club Secretary Kevin Clark. Its annual airshow is still set for June 24, but, beyond that, he said he knows the club’s time there is limited.
“We’ve known, with all the development going on around there, that that field was probably not going to be long for the world for us,” he said.
Clark credited the Oleson Foundation for letting the club use the field, which the 70- to 100-member club has used for years, he said. Model pilots also fly out of Green Lake Township’s airport, but members who live east of Traverse City liked having a closer spot for monthly meets during the summer.
Traverse Area Model Pilots Society will search for a new spot nearby or to the east, one where it can use a 40-foot-by-100-foot piece of geotextile as a landing strip.
Oleson said he let club leaders know the property has a potential buyer.
Sych said he believes the project overall has a lot of potential, especially as industrial parks in the region have filled.
“But they’ve got a lot of work to really make something that’s cohesive and valuable,” he said. “If they do, I think there’s a need for it.”
 
City Government Reporter
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