Arrested development for BTR?

Possible expansion for WMU business research park draws controversy.

Fritz Klug
News Editor

 

A large clearing with an array of modern buildings appears driving north on US 131. A sign reads “The Business Technology and Research Park.” Next to it is a wind turbine. Known as a small business incubator, the BTR park houses pharmaceutical companies as well as Western Michigan University’s College of Engineering. Once, the land was known as the Lee Baker Farm and was used for WMU’s agricultural school.

Past Parkview Avenue is another patch of property called known as the Colony Farm Orchard, where WMU plans to expand the BTR park.

Surrounded by Parkview Avenue, Drake Road., Stadium Drive, and US131, the Orchard property sits in the middle of a major traffic network. Originally used as farm land for patients in the Kalamazoo State Hospital, what remains today are the skeletons of a century of use – soil used up from farming, concrete remains of cottages, peel off label beer cans from years of neglect, traffic noise from 131, Drake, and Stadium, and a half dozen barrels collecting sap.

In some parts the foliage is thick, in others bare with wild grasses. There is a creek, a swamp, burr oak trees and ample wildlife that pass through.

The current BTR park is almost filled to capacity, housing 31 companies and over 650 employees, said Bob Miller, vice president for community outreach. A neighboring expansion would allow WMU to continue the success it has had over the last decade.

“It makes practical sense to expand the park,” Miller said, noting the awards the park has received.

The proximity of the College of Engineering as well as the success of the first BTR park are also factors favoring why the University wants to expand the park, specifically to the Orchard property.

But before the bulldozers clear land that many call one of the last open spaces around Kalamazoo, there are a few hurdles the university has to jump first.

Bills, bills, bills…

The development of the Orchard Lake Property began to germinate over the summer. On July 2, 2009, WMU’s Board of Trustees approved a plan to terminate a lease held by Michigan State University, who conducted entomological research on the property since 1963. The terms are that MSU has up to three years and $985,000 to move off the property.

No one from MSU was available to comment on exactly what the study involved.

“That property isn’t really being utilized now,” said Ken Miller, chairperson of the Board of Trustees. “[A development] will be for the benefit of the community.”

Two weeks later, on July 16, State Representative Robert Jones (D-Kalamazoo) introduced House Bill 5207, which would lift restrictions on the property, allowing it to be developed.

“The BTR park has been a tremendous success,” Jones said. “It is one of the main success stories that differentiates Kalamazoo from other area places.”

The bill reads: “The property shall be used exclusively for the purpose of expanding and improving the business technology and research park located on western Michigan university’s Parkview campus.”

Jones’ bill would get rid of a clause from the original 1977 land conveyance in which the Michigan Department of Mental Health gave the property to WMU for a dollar.

“The conveyance shall provide that Western Michigan University may utilize the property solely for public park, recreation, or open space purposes, except that the legislature, by statute, may authorize Western Michigan University to utilize the property for some other public purpose,” reads Section 3 of Public Act 158 from 1977.

This is language that Katie John, assistant vice president for legislative affairs at WMU, said was typical in land conveyances from the state, so that, when WMU received the property, it could not turn around and sell it.

“It was a safety measure for the state,” she said.

But according to former state senator Jack Welborn, the specification in Public Act 158 was specifically added from the legislation that conveyed Asylum Lake to WMU in 1975. He said his brother, Rep. Robert Welborn, who proposed the bill, wanted to insure the land be used as open space.

“WMU had a reputation of putting a new building on whatever property they received,” Jack Welborn said. “We felt that WMU had enough property and wanted to keep the space free and open.”

To Welborn, the current legislation is unnecessary. “There is enough property around [Kalamazoo] that is vacant and can be used,” he said. “There are better places for the [BTR park].”

As of Aug. 26, Bill 5207 has been passed unanimously by the Commerce Committee, which Jones chairs, and was recommended for a second reading in the House.

Ecological effects to Asylum Lake

The possible development of the Colony Farm Orchard has also caused many in the local ecological community to feel that wildlife and the neighboring Asylum Lake Preserve will be threatened.

Richard Brewer, professor emeritus of Biology at WMU and author of “Conservancy: The Land Trust Movement in America,” said that he has always thought of the Orchard as an extension of Asylum Lake.

“One of the values for the Orchard as a part of the Asylum Lake Preserve is that it’s a reservoir for the preserve, and the preserve is a reservoir for it,” Brewer said. “So if something goes extinct in one of those parcels, which happens all the time, [if] all the chickadees happen to have bad luck in the same year, here is a place where they can come back that is not many miles over the city.”

Amy DeShon, head of the Asylum Lake Preservation Association, said she is worried about the effects a development would have on the foxes, coyotes and deer that migrate from Oshtemo to surrounding neighborhoods.

“[Animals] need a rest between 131 and Drake,” she said.

DeShon is also worried about the increase of noise and light to the preserve as well as water contamination once the development has begun.

Steve Kohler, associate professor of environmental studies at WMU, teaches freshwater ecology at Asylum Lake. His class studies the levels of mineral deposits, such as phosphorus, in the lake. They are continuing research that began in 2006 by Kalamazoo based scientific and environmental consulting firm Kieser & Associates, LLC.

Asylum Lake has particularly high levels of phosphorus, according to the 2008 report. Phosphorus stimulates the growth of plants in a lake – too many plants would eat up oxygen and cause the lake to decay.

The study reports that 56 of the 161 pounds of phosphorus that goes into Asylum Lake comes from the northern section of Asylum Lake, a number that Kohler said could increase when the land is developed.

“When you start building, it generally increases phosphorus levels,” Kohler said.

Kohler added that if retention ponds are built in the northern part of the property, phosphorus levels may be reduced over time, something that the university has gone “above and beyond the call of duty” to ensure in recent developments.

To local artist Ladislav Hanka, the construction of the first BTR park and the planned second park, reminds him of Indian land claims. “As soon as they use [the land] up, they demand some more,” he said.

“There is something about the environmental community and the lands that are left natural that are still being treated,” he said. “As if they have no value as dispersed recreation, as a place that other creatures and animals and plants can co-exists with us and be apart of our lives.”

Nuances

From the time that WMU constructed the first BTR park in the late 1990s, much has changed in building practices. For example, the Health and Human Services building, constructed in 2005, received a gold Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design for Existing Buildings (LEED-EB) rating.

This is a similar kind of commitment that Bob Miller said WMU would bring to the development of the new BTR park.

Still, even if the land is developed according to the highest LEED standards, the land is no longer an open space.

“Any change to the status quo (open space) is usually viewed as making things worse,” Harold Glasser, PhD, professor of environmental research at WMU, wrote in an e-mail.

Glasser also sees many pluses to the development of the property, especially if WMU focuses on bringing in “green businesses” or using the property as a “green business incubator,” much like the current BTR park is used for pharmaceutical companies.

“It could bring meaningful, future oriented jobs to the area, it could create a better buffer to separate 131 from Drake and Asylum Lake,” Glasser wrote, adding that a development “could create a living example of how we might ‘develop’ an open space in an environmentally sensitive and sustainable manner.”

Miller said it had not been decided what kind of business will occupy the space.

Glasser added that construction, done right, could provide better biodiversity.

Still, to Brewer, DeShon, Hanka, the status-quo should be respected.

“What happens when we run out of space?” DeShon asked.

If the House Bill 2507 does get passed DeShon said she would like to see an interpretive center built on the property, so school buses could park and students could learn about Asylum Lake.

While actual plans for the BTR park are years off, Miller said that the community will be involved with every step of the planning process.