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Oakland County's "Billion Dollar Mile"

Oakland Township - a quiet, mainly rural community where the 1990 Census counted just 2,700 homes - is about to explode with a corridor of high-priced houses along Adams Road that's being dubbed "The Billion-Dollar Mile."

That $1-billion estimate comes from the value of eight planned luxury subdivisions - a total of 567 houses - plus an expansion of Wyndgate Golf Club.

"No, a billion dollars is not exaggerating," said Oakland Township planning coordinator Mary Collins.

No other metro Detroit community has so many houses, so high-priced, being built in such a concentrated area. Even booming Northville Township in Wayne County, building permits show, does not have an average new house price this high - somewhere in the $800,000-$900,000 range.

The billion-dollar mile is to get an official kickoff at 11 a.m. today during a reception at the corner of Adams and Silver Bell roads. In a lavishly landscaped setting, township leaders plan to unveil a plaque of a great blue heron that is carved in limestone at that corner.

No model, but condos sold

Along Oakland Township's billion-dollar mile, the least expensive home will be a condo in a subdivision named Claremont, aimed mostly at empty-nest buyers. That's where luxury condos, attached in twos, will range from about $500,000s to the high $600,000s. Although there's not yet a model for buyers to see, 23 of the 80 condos have been sold.

Prices are projected to range from $1.6 million to $3.2 million in the Pinnacle, a nearby neighborhood of 81 homes, which is to be started next spring. These will be custom houses behind a 24-hour gatehouse, said Dominic Moceri, who has developed much of the land on this mile-long strip and is building seven of the eight subdivisions. "We already have a waiting list," he said.

During today's reception, Moceri will open the first model home in the subdivision named Kingsridge. It is midpriced for this strip; homes with four or five bedrooms with an optional four-car garage will sell from $750,000 to $900,000.

Development along the billion-dollar mile has three main components. They are:

Wyndgate Golf Club: In a strip that runs south from Gunn Road to Silver Bell Road, and east from Adams Road to Brewster Road, Wyndgate is adding 18 holes of golf, bringing its total to 36, and building a second clubhouse with a competition-sized pool, tennis court, and a health and fitness facility. It's expected to open next summer.

The Heights: In a subdivision that will wind through the new golf course at Wyndgate, builder Stanley Frankel will start 71 houses. Frankel could not be reached for comment, but judging from the cost of the land, it's a good guess that most houses will be priced at more than $1 million.

The Oaklands: This huge project by Moceri Development will fill in most of the land still vacant along Adams Road between Dutton and Silver Bell roads. A total of 496 houses will be divided into seven clusters, each with a separate name, entrance and personality - country French, for example, or classic Italian - designed by Dominick Tringali Associates. Each cluster will have a different price range as well, from $500,000 to $3.6 million, but the level of luxury will stay the same.

"They'll all have granite counters, oak libraries and marble foyers," Moceri said. "They just have different square footage."

By next month, construction is expected to be under way on the first $75 million worth of houses. Many of these are already sold, even though there have been no model homes. Others will be "spec" or speculative houses, aimed at buyers in the future who can't wait to get their house built from scratch. Some of the houses will become model homes for the seven Oaklands subdivisions. An opening of 14 luxury model homes is planned for Memorial Day.

Dream homes on the way

Oakland Township's billion-dollar mile is a huge leap for a community where, until two years ago, the municipal offices were located in a little old frame building. It's a continuation of a luxury building boom that exploded in the 1990s after the township installed a sewer line in the southeast corner near Adams and Dutton roads.

As soon as homes could be built without a septic tank, luxury builders spilled into Oakland Township, pushed by the disappearance of large tracts of land in nearby Rochester Hills and Troy and pulled by the area's open, rolling terrain.

"You have a lot of really terrific views," said Township Manager Jim Creech. "We have a very lengthy review process that preserves the open spaces."

From the start, developers have built only expensive homes. Moceri, who was one of the first builders in the 1990s, built and completed the large subdivisions of Kingspointe, where homes sold at around $750,000, and the Hills of Oakland, at around $1 million.

Other early developers, said Fire Chief and Building Director Bill Benoit, include Robertson Brothers, Pulte Homes and Burton Katzman. Creech said he expects the 2000 Census to show a 50-percent increase in the number of households since 1990, from about 2,700 to 4,000.

In an area where nearly all building is new, it has been easy to sustain the moneyed mood. Even the corner Comerica bank looks like a brick mansion.

Although Collins, the township's planning coordinator, was wary of naming a number, it appears that hundreds more luxury homes are on the drawing board. This includes a project not yet announced that would fill the last large piece of open land along the luxury mile with perhaps 500 more houses and condos.

Moceri said building luxury homes in Oakland Township was a logical next step for his firm, which had been building in Troy and Rochester Hills since the 1970s.

"A lot of those people in Troy and Rochester Hills, they've seen their houses double or triple in value," he said. "They can build the house of their dreams."

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