
In this episode, Paul Krutko interviews Jeff Hauptman, founder and CEO of Oxford Companies. They discuss Arbor South, a transformative mixed-use development project in Ann Arbor featuring housing, retail, and public spaces designed to promote walkability, sustainability, and community engagement. Jeff highlights the importance of TC1 zoning, the project’s affordable housing component, and its alignment with the city’s sustainability goals. The conversation also explores the creation of a business improvement district along State Street and the innovative BrightWorks Coworking space.
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Paul Krutko: Welcome to Ann Arbor SPARK’s CEO Podcast…Conversations on Economic Opportunity. My name is Paul Krutko, and I’m the President and CEO of Ann Arbor SPARK.
Today, we welcome Jeff Hauptman to the podcast. Jeff is a visionary leader in our community and a valued member of Ann Arbor SPARK’s Board of Directors. As the founder and CEO of Oxford Companies, he has grown the business from a one-person firm into a leading commercial real estate company, managing millions of square feet and earning accolades like Crain’s Cool Places to Work and SPARK’s FastTrack Awards.
Jeff is also a dedicated community advocate, with recognition including the A2Y Chamber Small Business Person of the Year and induction into the Midwest RENews Commercial Real Estate Hall of Fame. With a degree in Urban Development from the University of Michigan and deep ties to Ann Arbor, Jeff’s work reflects a true commitment to creating spaces that benefit our region.
Today, we’ll be discussing his latest transformative project, Arbor South, and its potential to shape Ann Arbor’s future.
Jeff, it’s great to have you here!
Jeff Hauptman: Thanks for having me. This is exciting, this is fun. I always like to have a chat with you, Paul.
Paul: And there’s lots of interest in what you’re trying to make happen at State and Eisenhower and I guess we wanted to give you a chance to share that with a broader audience that listens in on our podcast. So I wanted to give you a chance to describe the Arbor South Project and how you think it represents a complete rethinking of the State and Eisenhower area.
Jeff: Thank you. So Arbor South is approximately a thousand units of housing, which covers say 1500 or so people. So we can house another 1500 people at state Eisenhower on what’s currently just parking lots and a gas station. Not only that, it’s going to have a full-service hotel, approximately a hundred thousand square feet of ground floor retail, so very walkable and it’s all adjacent to the existing office building so people can literally live, work and play all within the same space. And part of that thousand units includes 200 units of affordable housing, which is huge. It’s one of the largest affordable housing developments in the city’s history. And it really couldn’t have happened without the vision of a lot of people, including you look back over six, seven years when a lot of this began. And the question was asked, what can we do down here? And it was the people in planning that said, Hey, maybe we should consider some way of going denser. And then they took that to the city council and the city council said, yeah, we know we need to bring a lot more housing in. We know we need to create opportunities for scale, one-offs here, you’ll do 20 units here. That doesn’t do it. You got to really deliver a lot. And TC1 zoning is what city council delivered and that’s what’s allowing us to do this. Without it, you just can’t have the kind of density that we’re building.
Paul: Let’s dive down into that a little bit. A lot of times on these kinds of conversations, we use various acronyms. What does the TC1 zoning ordinance really allow you to do that you couldn’t do before on these sites? And maybe take a moment for everybody geography-wise to describe – everybody goes through state and Eisenhower – is this one quadrant of that intersection or do you want to explain the site a little more?
Jeff: Absolutely. State and Eisenhower is sort of the center of it, but it goes down to 94, incorporates the areas surrounding Briarwood but not Briarwood itself. So all the way over to the west would be Main Street is one border, and then the boardwalk area is the other border to the east, and then to the north it’s just past 777. So basically that’s about 250 acres of land.
Paul: That was, that’s the TC1 district, right?
Jeff: Correct. Transit quarter one. And what it allows you to do is build up to the sidewalks, whereas before you had to have major setbacks. Now you can build up to the sidewalks, whereas before you had to have a certain amount of parking for every square foot of office space. Now there’s no parking minimum. So that allows us to be far more efficient and really cut back on the need for parking in general. It allows you to go high and that part’s huge. So you see a lot of the developments that were done in the eighties and the nineties around here are 1, 2, 3 story buildings. Now, depending on where you are within the TC1 district, you can go as high as 20 to 25 stories. So that’s what we’re talking about with density. The Arbor South project will be five to seven stories. It’ll be a series of buildings and they’ll vary in height, but it’s something that you just simply could not do before.
Paul: So one of the things that’s interesting to me is this location, not just because it’s the property and what the city zoned, but relative to I-94 and the issues that we have that lots of people would like to live here and work here, but they can’t. And we’ve talked about how there’s 70,000 vehicles coming into Ann Arbor everyday for people who don’t live in the community but work here. And it seems that this, it’s proximity to downtown and the fact that the title of the zoning talks about transit itself, seems to be really responding also to the city’s sustainability goals. I mean, can you speak about that a little bit and also what your intentionality in development in terms of other sustainability issues?
Jeff: Sure. Couple of things. One, imagine the average commute in the southeastern Michigan region is about half an hour. That half an hour commute is the equivalent of the amount of natural gas needed to heat a thousand square foot apartment. So those cars on the road that are coming to Ann Arbor, you get one of those off the road, you’re saving a lot, right? You’re eliminating a lot of combustibles. So imagine now you get that 70, what did you say, 70,000 or so, just get 1% of that off the road. That’s 700 cars coming in, 700 families. We need a lot more of this kind of TC1 construction to really take on that demand. But that’s exactly what you’re talking about with all of these cars coming in. If we can get these cars off the road, get people walking, so A, you’re more sustainable when you get the cars off the road. B, once they’re walking, it’s a healthier lifestyle. So you’re improving people’s lives on two very critical levels. People can, from the Arbor South location, get to downtown in just a few minutes. And the AATA is great for being able to shuffle people back and forth. So now you’re talking about a strong argument for mass transit. So there’s a variety of ways of not only are we getting the cars off the road, but all the things that, the benefits that we’re getting from that. In addition, you’re talking about electrified departments. We’re working with the Office of Sustainability right now on a geothermal concept. That’s our goal. I can’t promise anything yet. So there’s other things that we’re doing in terms of trying to decrease the impact of the property on the environment.
Paul: One of the things that we can maybe be sure that we cover is this is intended in terms of your design to be very much a mixed-use development with housing, retail, public spaces, sort of creating a sense of place. And I know you’re partnering with Crawford Hoying, who has done developments like this in Columbus. So maybe speak a little bit about what you’re envisioning in terms of the quality design and the livability inside the project. I know you’ve spoken of how people can live there, get to downtown. My understanding of what I’ve seen is there’s a real intentionality about creating a place for the people that live there among the buildings you’re proposing.
Jeff: So Crawford Hoying did a just brilliant job in Dublin, Ohio of taking former, I think a driving range and some other derelict properties and creating what’s called Bridge Park – easy to Google Bridge Park. It’s about $800 million into a $1.2 billion vision where they’ve created, I don’t necessarily call it a downtown, but it’s like an urban center. And what it is is just as described. It’s very similar to what we’re doing at Arbor South — ground floor retail, and then above is office and apartments, and then there’s parking structures, but they’re kind of hidden in there. They’re mixed in. And then what’s really exciting about what they’ve done and what we’re planning for here is because they’ve developed the whole thing, it’s not like they just develop it and then someone else can try to figure out what to do with it. They’re very responsible with farmer’s markets, concerts. So they put together have an events staff that organizes and really creates a lot of life down there. And so it’s not just the people that even live there, but people from all over the community are able to come to it. We don’t have that on the south side of Ann Arbor. We have the Georgetown community, for example, that if they want something like that, they have to go downtown. They’re getting back in their cars and trying to find a place to park downtown. Here, they can walk or bike to events that we’ll put on.
Paul: Yeah, that’s great. So one of the things I want to touch on is, and make sure that you have a chance to speak to this is because I know there’s been some conversation about it. Obviously the sustainability goal of getting cars off the road is important and using mass transit, but there’s also the question that if I or anybody else moved into one of these units and wanted to visit my aunt in East Lansing on Sunday, I might need a car. For these units to be successful, onsite parking for residents is important. And I guess I want you to speak to that because I think people when they hear this think, well, okay, people will move in, they work downtown and great, we don’t need parking. And also my understanding is that is a particularly expensive part of the project, and I guess I want to let you speak to that issue, the need for parking and how expensive that kind of parking is to create.
Jeff: Sure. There’s a lot of layers to that question. Let me start with the simplest with just need, okay. I would love to see my mother live there and by the time it’s built, she’ll be in her early eighties, and my mom has always been pretty active. She still goes to the gym on a regular basis, but how likely is it that in February she’s going to get on her bike and bike to the grocery store for all of her groceries? I think people have to have at least some form of vehicle to get back and forth with basic stuff. And like you said, I mean, let’s say the person’s in Lansing. Okay, well, it’s not realistic that you say, oh no, we don’t need any parking. I mean even the downtown towers that are being built for students have some parking and that then goes to how do you build units without any parking at all?
Some people have said, oh, well there’s these communities out west that have no parking right next, well, they have parking outside of the area. And so there’s still some element of having access to cars. And so it’s kind of confusing that someone would think that you could somehow build a high-density development like this and not have at least some access to transportation like that. Ann Arbor is still a small suburban area, it’s not like we’re in Manhattan. And so we’re looking at how do you minimize the amount of parking? And so there’s engineering models that show we can balance the spaces between residential and office because the residential use is more of a nighttime use. The office use is more of a day use. And by balancing those uses, we can actually cut down significantly on the amount of parking needed.
The only way to do it in TC1 is via a structure. You can’t do it on an open surface lot or you’re not going to get the density that you want. From the housing standpoint, the surface lots are too expensive and don’t make any sense at all. You have a lot less, you have fewer apartments. Structure allows you to get the density you need in the apartments. Obviously structures are more expensive to build. And so that’s where we’re working with the city in partnership and they’ve been great in helping us figure out how to make that part of it work through Brownfield TIFF.
The thing I think in the most important piece of all this, Paul, is to remember, like you said, you got to have some parking, but what’s really beautiful about the way this is structured and by having mixed use, is our parking ratio for these new apartments is two cars for three units. In other words, two parking spaces for three units or about 0.66 parking spots per unit. It is a ridiculously low ratio of parking. So we’re able to really cut back on the actual amount of parking that is being constructed for this development.
Paul: So it’s very creative and I think the other part is how you are going to activate the lower levels of the structure where that is some of the retail activity and some of the office activity. So I think it’s very important for folks to understand that element because we want this project to be tremendously successful as it comes out of the gate, but if you’re somebody looking for someplace to live, you’re going to wonder about that particular issue. So taking care of it upfront is really, really important.
Well, as we close out, I really, really wanted to talk to you about Arbor South today. I wanted to take a moment to talk about something that we worked on with you and give you some kudos in terms of your personal leadership, working with Phil Santer, SPARK’s chief of staff, you and he have worked on creating a business improvement district along State Street.
And the vision there is that by creating a business improvement district, the owners will now have the ability to influence and fund potentially a beautification of that quarter. So talk a little bit about that. I think it’s important that the sense of arrival in Ann Arbor to what we are here is not that great. I’m just going to say that, that sounds incredibly critical. But when you go to other places in the nation and you get off the freeway, you realize you’ve arrived someplace. And right now the way State Street looks like you’re not quite sure where you’ve arrived. So you want to speak to that idea and why you got behind it?
Jeff: Absolutely. Let me begin by giving a big shout out to Phil. He really did do the heavy lifting. He’s great, a huge asset to SPARK. And as you know, I think Phil and I worked together for at least six or seven years on this. How we had it, and then we had to go on the state level and deal with the legislation that had changed during the process and back and forth. And when it finally came to a vote amongst the voting populace of property owners and the people that voted in the state Eisenhower area for this district, the vote was 96% for. And I think the reason why it was so overwhelmingly popular is because everything you just said is true. You get off at State and Eisenhower and a lot of residents will just take it for granted. They know they’re home, but anybody else, it’s like, where am I? This is the famous Ann Arbor? I mean, this looks like hell. You’ve got everything from the signage from the fifties to the berms that are just covered with weeds, and then you drive down the street and the median are asphalt with weeds growing up from between it.
And then for years, we had a row of dead trees. That’s what really got me going on. This was you go just south of Eisenhower. For years there were four completely dead trees in the median and they just sat there. And then of course the median on Eisenhower, the dandelions, and does someone really know where they’re going? A lot of us felt that it was time, but this is complicated. A lot of these are the City’s responsibility, but the city’s got a lot on its plate. So we thought, okay, can we help out some? Sure. But the whole other part to the aesthetic is also just having some leadership down here. State and Eisenhower now historically has been so divided in terms of ownership with the majority of the ownership out of state that there’s been no voice. Now this area has a voice. Now this area has a board that is listening to the people that do business here.
And remember, we have the largest office market in this area. We have the largest retail market in this area, we just didn’t have much housing. So it’s housing that typically gives a neighborhood, gives an area a voice. We didn’t have that voice. So now we have a voice. Now we can go to the city council and say, here’s what is needed to make this area better. And so that’s been a big driving force. We’ve had our first meeting, we’re preparing for our second, and a big part of that is going to be outreach to everyone in the area to ask, how can we improve? What can we do to help?
Paul: Yeah, and I think for the public that might be listening to this, this is leadership from the private sector. You reflected on the fact that a city government has lots of different demands and lots of things it’s trying to do. The business improvement district concept is that the private sector says, well, we want to help improve this area, but if we’re going to “tax ourselves” with those resources to have that happen, we need to have a voice in what gets done and how it gets done. And so it’s a successful model that’s been used in downtown Ann Arbor. What we had to do, and Jeff alluded to it, was the way the legislation was written at the State level complicated this, and this is an example of sort of the collaboration work that SPARK does from time to time, we discovered that there was similar issues in Detroit and we were able to partner with folks in Detroit, in the city of Detroit to get this legislation changed, not just for Ann Arbor, but also for Detroit.
And so I’m really excited about this because my vision is that within a few years, we’ll have a sense of arrival when we get off the freeway at 94, and that will be like some other places in the country where you really have that sense. And you alluded to, I was just down there recently. That’s the kind of thing that your partners in Dublin have done — when you arrive in certain parts of the Columbus metropolitan area, you know you’ve arrived someplace when you get there. So excited Arbor South, Jeff, excited about continuing to do whatever SPARK can do to support you and what you’re trying to accomplish in the city.
I want to give you one more little opportunity here that really wasn’t on our question list. Can you describe most recent project, the BrightWorks Coworking space?
Jeff: Oh, thank you for asking. We heard from a lot of tenants who had gone remote over the covid years that there’s a big demand for meeting space. They didn’t need an office anymore, but they wanted to be able to bring people together occasionally, once a quarter, once a month. They wanted to be able to bring people in from outside the area and hotels weren’t able to fully deliver what they needed. And they were saying, Hey, can we rent a conference room from you? Well, I mean, we don’t historically rent a conference room for an afternoon, a day, a week. So we created a new product, which is called BrightWorks Coworking, and just Google “BrightWorks Coworking Ann Arbor,” and you’ll find we have two locations, west side of town and south side, 777. And we offer a variety of meeting spaces, not just offices, which actually have been leasing really well, but also conference rooms. You want it for the afternoon, for the day, all the IT is already in place. You show up, run your meeting, leave. Don’t worry about anything coffee’s provided. And the range of conference rooms is quite wide, especially at the West side location. Up to the point of, we also have an event space that can host, I believe, up to 120 people, and you just say, Hey, we want to do a luncheon? No problem. We’ll get it all set up, show up. We can cater from anywhere and we’ll make it happen.
Paul: One of the things that, as you described it, we’ve sort of had this almost complete upheaval with the way companies are thinking about space and how, but the need to get people together still and who’s working at home and who’s not. So this is a very creative solution and it really adds to the offerings that we have here in terms of our business attraction activities and helping companies grow. So I really appreciate it, it’s another example of the creative thinking that happens at Oxford, and you should be commended for that. So anyway, Jeff, thanks for talking with me today. Appreciate it. It’s good to see you.
Jeff: Always good to see you, Paul. Thank you.
Paul: And I want to thank our audience for listening and learning more about those leaders and organizations working hard to create the Ann Arbor Region’s economic future. These conversations are brought to you by Ann Arbor SPARK. For more information about Ann Arbor SPARK, you can find us on the web@annarborusa.org. We’re also on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
Jeff Hauptman’s Bio
Jeff founded Oxford Companies over 25 years ago, and has grown the organization from a one-person investment holding company to a multi-division integrated commercial real estate company. Since then, he’s overseen millions of square feet of leases and hundreds of millions in financing.
Under Jeff’s leadership, Oxford has earned many accolades including Crain’s Cool Places to Work (Crain’s Detroit), Ann Arbor’s Best Landlord (Michigan Daily), and seven FastTrack Awards (Ann Arbor SPARK). Jeff himself has been named the A2YChamber Small Business Person of the Year, an honoree of Crain’s Detroit 40 Under 40, and an inductee of the Midwest RENews Commercial Real Estate Hall of Fame.
Jeff holds a Bachelor of Arts in Urban Development from the University of Michigan and is a Certified Commercial Investment Member (CCIM), licensed real estate broker and licensed builder. He serves on the Board of Directors for Ann Arbor SPARK, the region’s economic development council, and in various philanthropic initiatives throughout the area.
A devoted family man, Jeff spends much of his free time with his wife and six awesome children. He’s also a Goju-Ryu Karate instructor and Wolverine sports enthusiast.