Lathrup Village City Hall stands along Southfield Road.
By: McKenna Golat | Southfield Sun | Published December 17, 2025
LATHRUP VILLAGE — The Lathrup Village City Council at its Dec. 15 meeting voted unanimously against a more than $220,000 preliminary engineering commitment for a proposed Southfield Road improvement project.
The City Council discussed a request to approve funding for the preliminary engineering phase of the Southfield Road improvement project. Approving this funding would not have committed funding for construction in the future. This phase would have been a scaled back version of the overall project, only encompassing the section of Southfield Road between Mount Vernon Road and Cambridge Road.
The overall project would have seen the section of Southfield Road from Mount Vernon Road to 13 Mile Road be turned into a six-lane road and four-lane boulevard. Approval from all affected communities was needed to get the project out of the planning phase and into the design phase.
The project was planned to be divided into two segments. The segment of Southfield Road from Mount Vernon Road to 12 Mile Road would be worked on first, then the segment between 12 Mile Road and 13 Mile Road.
Had the project moved forward, Lathrup Village’s portion of the project for the first segment’s construction would have cost approximately $3.75 million.
Council members brought up their concerns over the project, which included speed concerns, the impact on local businesses, funding and the risk of the other communities not approving the project.
Council member John Sousanis said he was underwhelmed by the initial presentation of the project. He said the presentation did not have a commitment to reducing speed. He had also asked for an example of a similar project and what its impact was. He said he felt the answer was not analogous.
“This phase does not guarantee that the next phase will go through,” he said. “The next phase would almost come up to 11 Mile, and then we would have to go through this whole thing to get more of (the project) completed.”
Council member Jason Hammond said he agreed with Sousanis’ points at the meeting. He said there is a risk in approving the preliminary engineering, as this phase also needs approval from Southfield.
Hammond also brought up the concern of funding the project.
“Say the preliminary engineering does go through, we then need to come up with about $3 million to fund our part of the project,” Hammond said. “Have we identified where our source of the money would come from?”
Road Commission for Oakland County Senior Communications Manager Craig Bryson said the Road Commission is evaluating Lathrup Village’s position on the project. He said the next step is to go to the Southfield City Council to discuss moving forward with the project with just Southfield.
“If Southfield approves, the project could move forward but end at the city limit of Lathrup Village,” he said.
The road commission will be presenting the project to the Southfield City Council in early January.