The City of Troy Planning Commission on June 10 approved a preliminary site plan for a mixed‑use project at 363 West Big Beaver, voting to grant preliminary site plan approval subject to two conditions: add a prominent pedestrian entrance from the parking deck to the adjacent shared parking and submit written agreements for shared parking during construction. The motion was moved by Mister Lambert and seconded by Mister Faison and carried with one commissioner voting no.

The project, described at the meeting as the Big Beaver mixed‑use development, would retain an existing four‑story building fronting Big Beaver and add a seven‑story residential building behind it: two stories of parking deck and five stories of apartments above. The applicant said the footprint would be built to a zero‑foot rear setback after obtaining a variance from the Zoning Board of Appeals; the proposed new structure was described in the presentation as 83 feet, 8 inches tall. The applicant’s plan calls for 192 on‑site parking spaces and 41 off‑site shared spaces; the ordinance requirement cited at the meeting was 233 spaces.

Planning staff and the applicant told commissioners the project had returned to the commission after prior January review and that designers had softened the east elevation, lightened masonry tones, added 3‑D renderings and opened up the ground‑level garage façade. Staff asked the commission to consider compliance with site‑plan standards and two specific code citations and to require (1) resolution of OHM Advisors’ parking and construction‑period parking questions and (2) an accessible route from the shared parking areas into the building.

John Morosic, the architect for the applicant, told the commission his team had not received an OHM memo until late and that the issues raised were manageable. “None of these are daunting, okay, they just need to have some formality, a procedure, and process to achieve, you know, graphic results,” Morosic said while describing solutions for interim construction parking, signage and pedestrian wayfinding.

Steven Dearing, senior technical leader for traffic engineering services at OHM Advisors, told the commission the largest practical concern was accommodating parking needs during construction. “The single most significant concern that we have is during construction,” Dearing said. He recommended written assurances or agreements from neighboring property owners for temporary use of parking during construction; OHM said written assurances would be preferable to informal “handshake” arrangements.

The commission’s motion granted preliminary site plan approval for SPJPLN2024‑0011 with two conditions: that the applicant provide a more prominent pedestrian entrance from the parking deck into the shared parking area on the south side of the site, and that adequate written agreements be submitted to the planning department for shared parking during the construction phase. Mister Lambert made the motion and Mister Faison seconded it. Voting was recorded as: Mister Hudson, yes; Mister Krent, yes; Mister Lambert, yes; Miss Malala Holly, yes; Miss Perrakis, yes; Mister Tagle, yes; Mister Beakner, no; Mister Faison, yes; Mister Fox, yes. Motion carried.

Planning staff told the commission OHM had reviewed the shared‑parking arrangement and provided a January memo that flagged three areas for further detail: construction‑period parking logistics, confirmation of the off‑site shared spaces, and a wayfinding system for users of the shared parking. The applicant told the commission it had a permanent 25‑space easement with one adjacent property owner and that it had ongoing discussions with additional adjacent owners and tenants to formalize temporary construction arrangements.

The commission’s conditions require the applicant to resolve those construction‑period parking arrangements and to provide improved pedestrian access and wayfinding from the shared parking to the residential building before final approvals. The applicant said it would provide additional drawings, signage plans and formal agreements for review by city staff and OHM. The commission did not adopt building‑design changes beyond the items the applicant had already provided renderings for.

The preliminary approval does not authorize construction; the applicant must return with final engineering, finalized parking agreements and any other materials required by staff conditions and city departments. The commission’s action was limited to preliminary site plan approval under the city’s site‑plan review standards and the Big Beaver form‑based district requirements.