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A Topgolf entertainment and restaurant complex off Interstate 275 between Warren and Ford roads in Canton is nearing its last hurdles. But some — including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — have expressed concern about the project’s potential impacts to wetlands on the property, including uncommon forested wetlands that the developer’s own contracted analysts called “imperiled.”
Topgolf is a global sports and entertainment company known for innovative indoor-outdoor driving ranges where players hit microchipped golf balls at targets to score points. Developer Steve Robinson with Detroit-based Broder Sachse Real Estate, through Top Canton LLC, proposes a 68,000-square-foot, three-level golf and entertainment facility housing the Topgolf range, restaurant, bar, entertainment and event space on 55 acres just east of I-275. Two fast food restaurants, a Portillo’s and Chick-fil-A, are also slated for inclusion on the property.
The Canton Planning Commission on Jan. 27 voted unanimously to approve the proposal. Developers said they hope to put the plan before the Canton Board of Trustees by the end of February.
Township commissioner Sommer Foster, the township’s representative on the planning commission, expressed enthusiasm for the project at a planning commission meeting last year.
“I’ve spent the last few months … on the master plan advisory committee, and one of the things we consistently heard is that we need something in Canton that would draw people here and would have young people want to stay here and hang out and do fun things,” she said. “I think this meets that need for a lot of people in our community.”
Planning commissioner Doug Weber, at the board’s Jan. 27 meeting, declared, “I want the development here,” adding his remaining concerns relate to how added vehicle traffic will be managed.
One unresolved aspect to the Topgolf project is its wetlands permits. Though bounded by two very busy streets in Warren and Ford roads and I-275, the property has acres of wetlands, including less common forested wetlands.
Atwell LLC, a partner with Broder Sachse Real Estate, commissioned Michigan State University Extension’s Michigan Natural Features Inventory to study and report on the property last year. The report, by Paul Schilke and Michael Sanders, confirmed that the property features more than 13 acres of wet-mesic flatwoods, a mixture of lowland and upland hardwoods in mineral soils that very frequently don’t completely drain, often because of a clay layer below the surface.
Southeast Michigan has lost most of its wet-mesic forests, first to agricultural and then later to urban development.
“Wet-mesic flatwoods have greatly decreased in extent in Michigan due to ditching and draining of wetlands, channelization and damming of streams, development and other activities that weaken seasonal fluctuations in water levels and otherwise alter hydrology,” Schilke’s and Sanders’ report states.
“The community type harbors several rare plant and animal species and is subject to further degradation from non-native plants and pests.”
Their report concluded, “Wet-mesic flatwoods is an imperiled natural community in Michigan … The survey area contains a fragment of the wet-mesic flatwoods that retains high tree diversity and evidence of seasonal inundation, an important ecological process.”
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In an effort to mitigate wetlands disturbances, Top Canton modified the development footprint over the past year-plus of planning, dropping plans for a four-story hotel and moving the golf range farther north on the property. But the Portillo’s and Chick-fil-A restaurants will still be located along Ford Road, with a northward internal drive and stormwater retention-and-dispersal infrastructure affecting about a third of an acre of the wet-mesic wetland in the southern portion of the property, called “Wetland 2” in the project plans.
The developer proposes to fill about 7½ acres of wetlands on the property in a permit request to the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy. Top Canton proposes to mitigate the wetlands losses by creating a more than 3-acre forested wetland farther north on the property, and by paying a state mitigation bank to develop 9 acres of wetlands at a state-approved location in the River Raisin watershed.
The U.S. EPA has expressed concerns about the project’s wetlands impacts. A proposed stormwater pond that would discharge into Willow Creek, which runs through the property wetlands, may alter the wetland hydrology and add additional pollutants to the creek, Candice Bauer, acting director of EPA Region 5’s Water Division, wrote to EGLE officials in a Dec. 20 letter.
Bauer also expressed pessimism about the proposal to create a new wetland on-site as mitigation. “Wetland creation is less likely to succeed because it is difficult to provide the appropriate hydrology and soils to facilitate healthy, self-sustaining hydric vegetation, and the conceptual mitigation plan does not provide sufficient detail for the EPA to ensure a high probability of success.”
Bauer called on the developer to move stormwater ponds farther away from wetlands, to consider on-site layout alternatives, or “practicable alternatives” to build the facilities at other potential development sites.
The letter gives EGLE 90 days to work with the developer to resolve the issues raised by EPA, or to deny the wetlands permit. EGLE has the right to request a public hearing, but if the EPA objection to the wetlands plan isn’t resolved to the agency’s satisfaction within 90 days, or within 30 days of a hearing, permitting authority would shift to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Robinson did not respond to messages left by the Free Press.
The Detroit Bird Alliance, a chapter of the National Audubon Society, wrote in opposition to the Topgolf wetlands permit.
“Habitat loss is the No. 1 reason birds are dying,” Gretchen Abrams, the alliance’s executive director, told the Free Press. “We’ve lost one-third of all birds in North America in the last 50 years. There is lots of land out there in exurbia, and plenty of developable places which are not a wetland — which is a hugely important habitat space for birds.”
EGLE spokesman Jeff Johnston said the agency plans to issue its determination on the Topgolf wetlands permit yet this month.
If all remaining necessary approvals are received, Top Canton intends to proceed with the development in two stages, with the Portillo’s and Chick-fil-A restaurants built along Ford Road yet this year and the Topgolf range and facilities likely coming in 2026 or 2027.
HometownLife.com reporter Laura Colvin contributed to this report.
Contact Keith Matheny: kmatheny@freepress.com.
