Three-story Woodward/Quarton building set

By Grace Lovins

A new three-story office building is set to be constructed at the corner of Woodward Avenue and Quarton Road in Birmingham after city commissioners gave the green light during the Monday, December 15, meeting.

The building will serve as the new home base for InvestWise Financial LLC, financial planning consultants currently located in Bloomfield Township.

The building is planned for 36977 Woodward Avenue, a lot on the corner of Woodward and Quarton that has sat vacant for over 50 years, according to city planner Summer Aldred-Arens.

Plans for the building were reviewed and recommended for approval by the city’s planning board toward the end of October. During the planning board’s vote, the board set conditions that InvestWise would either have to fix or seek variances from the board of zoning appeals (BZA) for the building’s height and street frontage.

The plans show that the building height was greater than what was allowed by the ordinance by three feet, and the design fell short of the requirement for the street frontage by just under 14 percent.

Aldred-Arens stated that the firm went before the BZA and obtained one of the two variances for street frontage. The board did not grant the variance for the additional building height and ended up adjusting the plans to meet the city’s ordinance for a total building height of 42 ft.

With very little discussion from the commission, commissioners voted unanimously, 7-0, to approve the special land use permit and final site plan and design review for the new building. Commissioner Anthony Long, after the vote, thanked InvestWise for investing in Birmingham and congratulated them on their new building.