| Margene and Bob Buckhave are turning the former Michigan Gift Mart building in downtown Northville into a breeding ground for new entrepreneurial businesses.
The 90,000-square-foot building takes up a full city block but was not open to the public during the more than 25 years it housed sales representatives for retail vendors. Prior to that, it had a short tenure as an enclosed shopping center.
Today it is back in business as a retail and office hub, but the Buckhaves’ vision is far from the maze of hallways and sparse windows of the original 1970s structure they bought. Renamed Northville Square, the two-story, $8 million site at 133 W. Main St. now boasts huge windows, skylights and ceramic floors designed to house a growing list of boutiques, restaurants and the right mix of office tenants.
“We basically took everything out ... back to the brick columns,” said Margene Buckhave, co-owner and developer.
In many ways, the building’s reinvention mirrors the Buckhaves own career evolutions.
Margene forged her hobby of stenciling into a stamping and scrapbooking business and, after a divorce in 1990, became the sole owner of the predecessor business to her Stampeddler store in downtown Northville. She had originally started the business with three friends.
Bob Buckhave, meanwhile, started out as a plumbing contractor and is a master plumber. The two married in 1995 and in 1998 decided to take on their first real estate project together: renovating a 118-year-old Victorian church into a retail site with residential space upstairs. Known as Old Church Square, the three-building project totals 25,000 square feet.
“We renovated it, put the (Stampeddler) store in and built two buildings in the front,” Margene said. “Bob acted as the construction manager. We came in on time and under budget.” Margene moved her store to Old Church Square from the nearby store space she had leased for 15 years. It took seven months to renovate the store, 2.5 years to rebuild the residential space that is their home upstairs and a year to build the other two buildings.
With one successful team project behind them, breathing new life into the Michigan Gift Mart building didn’t seem as daunting. After buying the building in 2005, they changed the roof design, put in 60 windows and doors, changed the entrances and facades and all floors and lighting. As the stores and restaurants lease space, each is built out with high-end finishes. They also returned the building to its original name of Northville Square.
The couple said they bring complementary skills she pushes for the more expensive materials; he handles project management.
The contemporary Nomi restaurant, open for six weeks, has been an instant hit, partly because of a look and feel different from what has traditionally been found in Northville, the Buckhaves said. Local entrepreneurs have opened up a Madilu & Ethan Too! kids clothing store, a Pure Barre workout center and a Belli Couture maternity boutique. Other stores in the works include a Solid Grounds coffee house and a store Margene Buckhave plans to own and run, GG Resort, which will sell resort wear.
The name for the GG store comes from its main line of clothing, Girls Golf, which is designed by Bloomfield Hills-based Girls Golf founder Annie Margulis. Margulis’ line is sold in country clubs and resort stores locally and in Florida, Texas, California, Nevada, Barbados and Europe. The Northville store is the first using Girls Golf as a launching point; Buckhave plans to add other resort clothing, such as tennis wear, as well.
Northville Square is a great site for the store because it will draw shoppers from as far as Ann Arbor, and the timing could not be better given the rising popularity of women’s golf, Margulis said.
“I think there’s a big desire to be fashionable,” she said. “You can be feminine and have game.”
Girls Golf has had extensive coverage in golf trade publications, and the Ladies Professional Golf Association’s Vicki Goetze-Ackerman is wearing the line.
Downstairs from that store build-out, CV Media, a firm that produces Web sites, videos and other media, has moved in, and the 3-year-old Main Street Bank moved its headquarters in late January. It kept its first location, also on Main Street, as a branch.
Rick Shaffner, CEO of Main Street Bank, said the plan for the building was excellent and provided the space the bank needed, about 11,000 square feet. The addition of destination stores is a nice draw as well, he said.
“We’re not going to be a big-box type of downtown,” he said. “It’s a beautiful building.”
The Buckhaves say they hope to provide space for more success stories like Shaffner. Perhaps buyout offers at Ford Motor Co. will prompt people to consider a local franchise, Margene said. Shaffner, for example, found success getting a new bank up and running despite the Fed’s steady interest rate hikes.
“I just refuse to be a pessimist,” Shaffner said. “Bob and Margene have the same mindset.”
Northville Square has about 30,000 square feet of common areas, some of which could be used by kiosk businesses such as food vendors, but much of which would be available for public events. The project adds about 40 percent more retail space to the downtown, Bob Buckhave said. The couple is working hard to find the right mix of new tenants and not steal tenants from other downtown landlords, he said.
City Manager Patrick Sullivan said Northville Square is “unique because it’s an indoor environment that continues the energy of the street into the building.”
He said it complements other efforts under way downtown, such as a Downtown Development Authority marketing and branding strategy, and a renovated town square project. The city plans to spend $1.5 million to improve its Main Street town square, and plans a $4 million streetscaping program. Construction on the town square project will start this summer, he said.
Margene Buckhave said the combined effect of real estate investment, the additional business, and plans for a theater championed by Northville residents Chuck and Susan Gaidica (See box) should all move the city forward.
The architects of Northville Square are CubellisMarco, North-ville, and Kevin D. Hart & Associates, Birmingham.
Jennette Smith: (313) 446-0414, jhsmith@crain.com.
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