The Dexter Village Planning Commission unanimously approved a combined preliminary and final site plan for an expansion of the LaFontaine Chevrolet dealership following a lengthy discussion Monday night.

Planning Commission Chairman Matt Kowalski expressed his concerns with numerous changes in the plan, including the addition of a car wash, which were not addressed by the village’s consultants in their reports.

Kowalski cited discrepancies and inadequacies in the landscaping and parking depicted on the plans and originally said he could not support the proposal.

“This corner is a significant, if not the most-significant intersection in the village,” he said, not pleased with the proposed idea for a simple bench as an architectural feature on the corner location. He said the plan should have a prominent visual landmark to meet the village’s Ann Arbor Corridor Plan standards.

“I don’t know what it is we are trying to do,” said Jim Carson, the Village Council’s liaison to the Planning Commission. “This is a car dealership … it doesn’t look like any other car dealership I’ve ever seen.”

He accused Kowalski of nitpicking on the plan for a $7 million investment in the village that is expected to add 50-100 new jobs and a car dealership that sells about 2,000 cars a year.

“They are creating a destination for us; they are bringing 2,000 people into our village. This is acceptable, they’ve done enough,” Carson said.

Council member Paul Cousins spoke in favor of the plan and said he’d suggest the corner location as a site for a public art project.

Bloom General Contracting Inc. is listed as the applicant for the project that will remove the current buildings on the site at 7120 Dexter-Ann Arbor Road and replace them with a 32,000-square-foot commercial building, office, auto repair shop and car wash.

The site will be reconfigured for a two-phase development that will demolish the current body shop and east side of the site and put a new building in its place. The second phase will include the demolition of the used car trailer and existing sales building.

Matt LaFontaine, general manager for the dealership, said General Motors requires 611 parking spaces. “I’ll have to store about 200 cars off the site,” he said. The plan calls for about 430 parking spaces for new and used cars as well as cars brought in for service and employee parking.

First considered by the Planning Commission on Nov. 1, the plan was postponed so the applicant could address a number of issues that included moving a sidewalk, a change in building materials for the exterior of the building and changes in the proposal’s parking layout and landscaping.

“We will try to get LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification,” said Alan S. Bloom, president of Bloom General Contracting Inc. of Redford. LEED is a nationally recognized green building certification.

He said the extended canopy on the west side of the building will double as a “charging station for new electric vehicles,” and there will be a solar roof on the building.

Bob Wanty of Washtenaw Engineering told the Planning Commission that the construction of the new dealership was on a tight timeline once the project got a green light from General Motors. “This is a desperate situation,” he said in urging the Planning Commission to approve the combined site plan so the project could get under way.

The Planning Commission’s recommendation might make it onto the Dexter Village Council’s agenda for its Dec. 13 regular meeting, but more likely, it will be considered at the council’s Dec. 27 meeting.

Lisa Allmendinger is a reporter for AnnArbor.Com. She can be reached at lisaallmendinger@annarbor.com. For more Dexter stories, visit our Dexter page.

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