VBT Planning Commission focuses on Costco Depot plans

By Rosemary K. Otzman
Independent Editor
Costco Wholesale is requesting preliminary site plan approval to construct a 347,720-square-foot depot / truck terminal on a 71.84-acre site behind the Bayloff Industrial building at the Canton Township border on Belleville Road.
At the July 23 regular meeting of the Van Buren Township Planning Commission, Seth Johnson of Design Strategies, gave a PowerPoint presentation on details of the Costco plans.
Johnson, who is in charge of Costco Midwest projects, said he is a registered planner and a registered landscape architect, as well as an architect.
[When McKenna Associates planning consultant Sally Hodges asked if Johnson was an attorney, too, he said he wasn’t but he played an attorney once on TV.] Costco has requested a variance and so Costco will appear first at the Aug. 12 meeting of the Board of Zoning Appeals before coming back to the planning commission in late August for a decision on the site plan.
All of the proposed light poles on the site are 35 feet tall and the VBT ordinance prohibits light poles over 25 feet, so the BZA will be asked to allow the taller poles.
Johnson said the lights they want to use have a five-foot concrete base and are 30 feet high, with a standard shoebox fixture.
He said the lights will not exceed 0.5 foot candles at the property lines.
The Costco discussion went on for well over an hour before the commission and covered:
• Costco’s history: second-largest retailer in the country, seventh-largest retailer in the world, having 75 outlets in Europe, Asia and Australia. There currently are 17 depots in North America and the current Midwest depot serving 13 states is in Morris, IL. The Morris depot is currently close to maximum capacity, serving 62 retail stores. Costco will be breaking this into two parts and the VBT depot will cover Michigan, Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky and by early fall 2015 that will include 30 stores.
• Costco is purchasing the Holly Construction property with a one-story building at 5800 Belleville Road to add to its site. After going through the BZA meeting, Costco will go through a parcel combination because there are three parcels now.
• Costco needs a signalized intersection on Belleville Road and it has been working with Wayne County. Johnson said Costco has a county signoff on this location and is working on the signal. Johnson said it is estimated every day there will be 231 trucks coming into the depot and 231 going out. The roads to the site are under Wayne County jurisdiction and trucks are not restricted.
• The routes of the trucks will be recommended to the drivers, but only the Costco trucks, about half of those coming and going, will have to follow the routes as directed. The other trucks are vendors who will use what routes they want. Trucks coming from the west will be asked to take I-94 to Michigan Avenue and then go south on Belleville Road to the site. Trucks coming from the east are being asked to take I-275 to Michigan Avenue or Ecorse to the site. As far as exiting, trucks heading to Chicago will be asked to go south on Belleville Road and west on Ecorse to I-94 and those going north, south or east, to drive north to Michigan Avenue and then to I-275. Hodges said it is not in the township’s best interests to have trucks go south “through our downtown” and she said Costco should posts signs at the exit, with penalties. She said there were some concerns truckers had about Michigan lefts.
• There will be 126 employees during the first three years: 110 making $43,600; six making $38,800; and 10 making $38.040. Johnson said if expansion proceeds as it has in other sites in the Midwest, they easily will have 350 employees in VBT in the future.
• Costco said it will invest $50 million in the first three years, with $44 million in year one for acquiring the land and building the depot. Then they will add material and machinery.
• Storm water will be detained in ponds with aerators for mosquito protection along the railroad track with a small underground vault in the northeast section because that water doesn’t drain to the south.
• There will be more discussions on raised curbs at Belleville Road at the truck drive, which is a quarter-mile long. VBT Treasurer Sharry Budd said the township should go with Costco’s experience on the matter, calling for pavement markings. “I don’t like to see what trucks do to curb cuts,” Budd said. “It’s going to look like nothing.”
Johnson said it has been his experience that if there is no mountable curb in the drive, emergency vehicles, such as fire trucks, can enter through the out lane when the in lane is packed.
Missing documents
Johnson said that some of the documents Hodges has asked for were already provided by Costco to VBT’s building department.
The soil borings requested by Dave Nummer of Wade Trim at the July 23 meeting, were already submitted to the township in April, Johnson said.
“The same thing happened to the tree [removal] application,” Johnson said. He said when he asked the building department about the documents, he was told, “Maybe we threw it out.”
When Hodges said the township didn’t have sketches from Costco until recently, Johnson said they submitted sketches on July 18, but it was not the first time they submitted sketches. He said since January Costco has been submitting sketches to the township.