Developers outline Shaw Walker transformational brownfield plan, seek city support ahead of February vote

City of Muskegon officials and developers on Monday updated the City Commission on plans to redevelop the long-vacant Shaw Walker factory and seek state transformational brownfield approval to help finance the project.

The project team, led by Parkland Properties founder John Rooks and supported by the city's development director, Jake Atcomb, said the plan would convert the roughly 630,000-square-foot, 15-acre factory into mixed-use housing and retail and relies on transformational brownfield incentives to be financially viable.

The state-designated program, an amendment to the Michigan Brownfield Act (Public Act 381), allows tax-increment capture and, for qualifying projects, additional state-level captures of construction and resident income taxes and sales-and-use exemptions to support unusually large or complex redevelopment. Jake Atcomb, the city's director of development services, summarized the difference: "Transformational brownfield at its core . . . provides more incentives from state tax sources, for financially challenging projects than a traditional local brownfield will." He said the state requires a minimum capital investment threshold for communities Muskegon's size (the city must meet the statutory minimum for its population category) and that the…