Birmingham Towers plan changes not supported

By Grace Lovins

After two postponements, Birmingham’s planning board members voted to recommend denial of the plan changes for the Birmingham Towers development, currently being constructed at 479 S Old Woodward, during the Wednesday, July 23, meeting.

The plans will continue on to the city commission, where commissioners will make the final decision next month.

Plans for Birmingham Towers have been presented to the planning board numerous times over the last five years. The building currently being constructed at the site was the plan iteration approved in March 2023, set to be a five-story mixed use building with commercial, residential and office. Two levels of underground parking with 87 spaces were also proposed.

What brought the project before the board again was another request to change the site plan for the building usage. The change also resulted in an adjustment to the required parking which left Birmingham Towers short 49 on-site parking spaces. According to planning director Nick Dupuis, the site had also already received the benefit of 61 spaces reduced from their required total for housing multiple uses.

On top of the plan adjustments, Birmingham Towers submitted a parking review written by engineering firm Fishbeck that uses data of the Peabody and Pierce parking garages from March 2025. The review claims that the parking garages have enough capacity to handle the excess parking from Birmingham Towers.

Birmingham Towers’ plans for parking has been a sore spot since plans were originally brought to the board. Doraid Markus, co-partner of Birmingham Towers LLC, argued that the city left the property out of the former parking assessment district which would’ve alleviated the parking challenges at the site. Since then, he successfully petitioned an ordinance amendment that would allow the commission to waive the parking requirements for his building under a special land use permit (SLUP).

Dupuis explained that after city staff review of the parking analysis from Fishbeck, staff does not support the changes to the project and feel the application does not meet the standards of site plan review.

Almost the entire board agreed that the Birmingham Towers’ argument fell flat and the new plans would create significant issues for the surrounding residents and businesses.

“There is no way that I can conclude that this proposed change would be anything other than detrimental to the surrounding community, the surrounding business owners and put an unneeded strain on the city’s infrastructure at a time when we’ve got other development coming online,” Clein said.

The board voted 6-1 to recommend denial of both the SLUP and final site plan to the city commission. Board member Stuart Jeffares was the lone vote against both motions having stated earlier in the meeting that the city was at fault for leaving Markus’ property out of the former parking assessment district.