- 2,226 apartments
- Nine hole golf course
- Somerset Mall
- Somerset Plaza
From The Detroit Free Press, Sunday July 5, 1964
$50 Million Development, State’s Largest, Set for Troy
A $50 million resident, commercial and recreational development will be started this fall on a tact of farm land in Troy which adjoins Birmingham, it was confirmed Saturday.
Norman J. Cohen, executive director of the Biltmore Development Co., said a 2,000 unit multiple housing complex and the development of two shopping centers on a 200-acre site along Coolidge and Big Beaver (16 Mile) would be built.
He said the complex would be constructed by the Biltmore Development Co. whose principals are Phillip and Max Stollman and Sam Frankel Associates.
The land, Cohen said, was purchased in the last several months. Most of the 122 acres had been owned by Frank N. Isbey, Michigan war bond campaign head during World War II, and now president of the Detroit Fruit Auction Co.
The site is T-shaped, Cohen said, with the apartment house complex running a solid mile between 15 and 16 Mile along Coolidge facing a subdivision of homes in Birmingham.
“This site has more potential than any other in metropolitan Detroit,” he said.
“It is well-known that the Birmingham – Bloomfield – Troy area of Detroit will become one of Detroit’s most popular areas. Areas north, west and south of Birmingham are mostly all built up and the only open space nearby is to the east…the location of our development.”
Cohen revealed plans for the project before the Biltmore Development firm is to make a formal request to the Troy City Council Monday night for the widening of Coolidge from its present two lanes into a broad, four-lane boulevard between Maple and Big Beaver.
2 SHOPPING CENTERS
“Such a road would be needed to handle the traffic generated by the apartment complex and its adjoining shopping centers,” said Cohen.
Birmingham’s city commission is also being asked for approval of the boulevard, half of which is in that city.
Present plans call for a major shopping center to be erected on the south part of the project (on the northeast corner of Maple and Coolidge) while a lesser shopping center would be built on the north end of Big Beaver and Coolidge.
No major stores were disclosed for these locations.
Cohen said the Stollman brothers and Frankel own the property outright. Besides the property along Coolidge, the project ail also extend eastward to Crooks alone a 200-foot corridor. The purchase price of the property was not disclosed.
Initial plans call for the development to feature garden-type apartments, town houses and luxury high-rise buildings set in landscaped parks with provision for parking for all tenants.
“The site was determined because of the practical location within a mile of the Chrysler Freeway, bu its zoning and its size,” said Cohen.
The Stollmans shave been connected with Detroit’s building industry since 1923 when the Biltmore Building Co. was founded by Louis Stollman. He died 14 years ago and his two sons took over the business.
