For years, a parcel of land at the intersection of Stadium Drive and Drake Road in Kalamazoo has been the source of heated debate on whether to rezone it for commercial use. This week, the saga came to a conclusion after a vote by the Kalamazoo City Commission to reject the rezoning request for 4301 Stadium Drive.
The parcel of land sits directly next to Asylum Lake preserve and is currently zoned as a residential area for low-density single-family housing. In 2017, a company called "DNS Stadium Drive", associated with the Drive N' Shine car wash chain, bought the property.
In 2020 and 2023, two separate rezoning requests for the property were submitted and subsequently failed.
In 2025, another request was submitted to rezone the land for commercial use once again. During a meeting on November 6, 2025 the Kalamazoo Planning Commission – a volunteer board that advises the city commission - recommended against the rezoning. Then, the issue was kicked up to the city commission to consider after a public hearing.
The public hearing took place during a regular business meeting of the City Commission on January 26 that began at 6 p.m., though the commission did not adjourn until 1:30 a.m. after nearly three and a half hours of public comment during the hearing.
Nearly every public comment – there were one or two outliers – was in opposition to the rezoning, with nearly every speaker focusing on potential environmental impacts to the nearby Asylum Lake Preserve.
"Asylum Lake Preserve is one of the city's most sensitive natural assets. And even with modern commercial development systems, failures and storm event overflows are far from rare," said resident Michael Winter. "Once contaminants enter a lake like Asylum, remediation is extremely expensive and often times only partially effective."
Other speakers discussed perceived negative impacts from commercial rezoning of the area like increased traffic and a loss of green space and recreation areas for residents in the surrounding area.
"Resolving this land to the city's most intense commercial district would inevitably increase impervious surfaces, stormwater runoff, road salt infiltration, noise, light, traffic, all directly impacting nearby residents and the preserve itself, " said Stephanie Watson of the Oakland Drive/Winchell Neighborhood Association.
Before the public comment period began, city planning staff spoke and presented information about the viability of the site for rezoning.
Assistant city planner Robert Durkee presented staff findings that current residential zoning of the parcel is no longer viable for development as a residential area due to factors like traffic flow, and said city planning staff believes the parcel would be better as commercial land.
"Single family zoning is not the appropriate zone in this site at this location," Durkee said.
Emily Palacios, a representative for the land’s owner – which is also the applicant seeking to rezone the land – asked the commission to approve the rezoning request and said the land’s owner will experience significant financial losses if the land is not able to be used commercially.
"Right now with the zoning that's in place, the residential zoning in place, there's just not a path forward to figuring out how this land can be used for any real particular purpose other than the undeveloped vacant space that exists today," Palacios said.
Though the land owner originally proposed a car wash to be placed on the parcel, Palacios said during the meeting that the owner is no longer solely focused on building a car wash.
"We've heard loud and clear that a car wash isn't viewed as an appropriate land use for this location. What we'd like the opportunity to do is to begin to seriously evaluate the site for other types of commercial uses that would be compatible with the site and the other land uses in the area," Palacios said.
When asked by Commissioner Jacqueline Slaby why the land owner is opposed to leaving the parcel undeveloped, Palacios said the land owner currently experiences frequent trespassing on the land and has to deal with associated costs.
Despite Palacios’s statement that a car wash wouldn’t necessarily be guaranteed if the land was rezoned, many public commenters spoke about how they would be opposed to any commercial development on the land.
"The question before you is not whether a car wash or a commercial development is inherently bad. It's whether this location is appropriate given the environmental sensitivity and the economic risks and the city's stated development priorities. The evidence suggests it is not," Michael Winter said.
Ultimately, the commission unanimously voted against rezoning the land at around 1 a.m.
"Given the sensitivity of this location and the long-standing community emphasis on protecting natural assets, it is prudent not to lock in the highest level commercial intensity here," Commissioner Slaby said.
