DEARBORN – Nearly seven years after Dearborn’s massive Montgomery Ward department store at Michigan Avenue and Schaefer Road closed its doors and began deteriorating from the inside out, the city, which acquired the building in 2005, is on the verge of closing a deal to sell the property and have it redeveloped into a major project.

The sale is set for $3.35 million dollars, the same price it bought the property for more than two years ago.

Upon approval of the plan from one of the companies involved and from City Council, demolition of the building could begin as soon as April, followed by the construction of about 25,000 square feet of medical facilities, senior housing, retail and parking space.Real estate and investment company REDICO is set to be the developer involved with Oakwood Health System as primary tenant, Midwest Health System as a subtenant to Oakwood, and American House as the senior housing partner.

City officials, who released a pamphlet at a press conference Thursday detailing the proposal and a chronology of the city’s efforts to have the site redeveloped, said the plan is expected to bring more than 200 new jobs and 100 new residents to East Downtown Dearborn.

Mayor Jack O’Reilly said that the included parking structure will be public property, offering 500 spaces of free parking, costing $9 million in public dollars, most or all of which will be paid for with tax capture from the private investment.

O’Reilly said that though he had hoped for a corporate headquarters to occupy the vacant downtown property, the project is the best opportunity the city has had to make use of the property as a much needed spark to revitalize the East Downtown District.

“Given the market and what’s going on with the economy right now, this is very exciting to me,” he said.

Following the Montgomery Ward department store’s closure in 2001, after 70 years of business, local business owners Talal Chahine and Kaid Bazzy bought the property for $1.8 million.

Under late Mayor Michael Guido, the city bought the property from Chahine for $3.35 million in 2005.  Due to the high profit made on the sale, and environmental hazards present in the building, the ethics and finances of the deal were questioned at the time, but no investigation was ever conducted.  O’Reilly, who was president of the City Council when the sale transpired, has said that the city purchased the property to prevent it from being used as a restaurant equipment warehouse, which would have brought little economic stimulus to the area. Environmental concerns will be addressed by the developer, partially funded by federal money earmarked for environmental cleanup.

Chahine has since been indicted on federal tax evasion charges and is now a fugitive believed to be in Lebanon.