A corner lot at Woodward Avenue and Quarton Road that sat empty for more than 50 years is finally getting built on, as InvestWise Financial breaks ground on an $8 million headquarters near Birmingham's border with Bloomfield Hills. The three-story, 9,300-square-foot building will include a glass conservatory and a 1,200-square-foot rooftop terrace overlooking Woodward, with the wealth management firm targeting a July 2027 opening.
The property, officially registered at 36977 Woodward Avenue, occupies a 0.38-acre parcel at the southwest corner of the intersection, according to DBusiness. As reported by Axios, the site had sat undeveloped for decades after its former gas station closed, complicated by the cost and complexity of cleaning up the underground contamination left behind.
Decades of Vacancy, Finally Broken
Birmingham city planner Summer Aldred-Arens told public review meetings that the corner lot had sat vacant for over 50 years following the closure of its former gas station, according to Downtown Publications. Previous developers had passed on the property due to environmental cleanup costs and site constraints, per the same account. The Birmingham City Commission voted unanimously, 7-0, in December 2025 to approve the special land use permit, final site plan, and design review for the three-story building, following planning board review the previous autumn.
Underground tanks were removed after the old gas station was demolished, and InvestWise Financial removed and replaced soil as part of the cleanup, Axios reports. The firm considered public incentives for the environmental cleanup but ultimately determined that they did not make sense for the project, opting instead to fund the remediation privately.
Zoning Limits and a Scaled-Back Design
Developers capped the building height at 42 feet to comply with Birmingham's TZ3 transitional zoning district ordinance after the city's Board of Zoning Appeals declined a variance for additional height, Downtown Publications notes. Initial project plans had exceeded the municipal height limit by three feet before the design was scaled back. Approved municipal site plans also mandate exactly 19 parking spaces and require pedestrian infrastructure upgrades, including new crosswalk striping across Woodward Avenue and surrounding sidewalks, according to the same outlet.
InvestWise Financial co-founder Brandon Moore said the firm envisioned a beautiful building as the gateway to Birmingham, per Axios. InvestWise, a local wealth management firm with about 25 employees, is relocating its head office from neighboring Bloomfield Hills to owner-occupy the new facility, according to DBusiness. Project partners for the development include architect Jeff Klatt of Krieger Klatt Architects, contractor Schaefer Construction Inc., land broker Mike Valant of Newmark, and lender Tracey Brinkman of Oxford Bank.
Part of a Wider Woodward Corridor Pattern
The redevelopment mirrors a broader pattern along Metro Detroit's Woodward corridor, where private capital has increasingly resolved long-standing brownfield challenges tied to old gas stations. In April, another former gas station site nearby — the 54,800-square-foot Greenleaf Trust building at Woodward and Maple — sold for approximately $20 million, offering a local precedent for how these corner lots can transform into premier commercial space.
Michigan's EGLE Part 213 Leaking Underground Storage Tank program oversees environmental remediation for petroleum release sites statewide, and the agency's Detroit District achieved a record 116 site closures in fiscal year 2025, according to the State of Michigan EGLE. The Part 213 framework sets cleanup criteria that legacy petroleum sites must meet before they can be declared safe for commercial reuse, a hurdle that has kept corners like Woodward and Quarton dormant for years.
Pedestrian access near the site is also improving. In August, adjacent Bloomfield Township awarded a $1.7 million contract to construct the Jan Roncelli Safety Path along Quarton Road, creating a continuous pedestrian connection leading directly toward Woodward Avenue. Once InvestWise Financial's headquarters opens in the summer of 2027, the long-vacant corner will finally have neighbors on foot as well as in cars.
