[Crawford]

This will never happen.

I know Southfield well, and lived there for a bit as a child. Southfield, while a decent community, is slowly declining, and does not have sufficient demand for new retail space of any type. The existing mall (Northland) is a disaster, the other mall (Tel Twelve) was demolished and rebuilt, and all those existing office buildings you see in the renderings are half-empty and starved for tenant interest. They're even demolishing 60's-era highrises in Southfield (just tore down a former Sheraton, and a former Holiday Inn may be next).

And surrounding communities have successful existing downtowns (Birmingham, Royal Oak, Ferndale). Southfield is an older sprawlburb and cannot compete with this.

Another thing: Southfield is overwhelmingly black and Orthodox/Hasidic Jewish. This means it isn't your "typical" sprawlburb, and means that your typical retail development and might not necessarily work. You need someone who knows the community; who would know that, for example, Friday night is useless from the perspective of attracting religious Jews, or that retail in black neighborhoods may be successful in attracting blacks but often has trouble attracting other ethnicities from neighboring jurisdictions.