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NOVI — The Novi City Council unanimously approved the purchase of 3.93 acres of land, located at 25901 Beck Road, from Novi Funeral Home LLC, during its regular meeting March 20.
The $2.1 million purchase is located at the southwest corner of Eleven Mile Road and Beck Road. It is adjacent to Bosco Fields, which it currently leases from the Novi Community School District and uses for city park purposes.
“This is the last piece to the Bosco puzzle and is contiguous to the future home of the Jessica Star Splash Pad,” said interim City Manager Victor Cardenas.
The purchased property is part of the former Bosco home site. The funeral home originally bought the entire Bosco property and secured development approvals for the north half of it for a funeral home. The remainder of the land was sold to the city in 2018. The funeral home company has since decided to forgo its plans to build a location at that site and offered to sell the property to the city.
“It is an expensive piece of land, but the problem with buying a public land is, if it were to go, once it’s gone, we’ll never get it back as a part,” said Councilman Brian Smith in making the motion to approve the purchase. “Its position is ideal to add onto the existing Bosco Fields, and I feel it is really important that we get this land and turn it into a park.”
Mayor Bob Gatt said he agreed with Smith that the land was a very valuable piece of the “very difficult puzzle” that the city has put together. He said by purchasing the land, the city will have all the land and prevent it from having any commercial markup.
“We are in a position now, with this and the finalization of the Bosco exchange agreement with the school district, of having probably one of the most prime pieces of real estate in the middle of our city preserved for parks forever,” said Mayor Pro Tem Dave Staudt.
It is anticipated that the funds for the purchase will come from the capital improvement program fund. The council approved amending the budget to fund the purchase.
