From right: At the counter of the county clerk’s office on Main Street, senior clerk Susan Bracken Case reviews documents from UM’s purchase of the Pfizer property, while chief deputy clerk Jim Dries, Liberty Title co-president Tom Richardson and Liberty Title vice president Matt Keir look on.

Because documents for the sale of Chrysler’s Chelsea Proving Grounds were also filed that day in a separate transaction – a coincidence of timing – it marked the largest amount of transfer tax ever recorded in a single day for the county. Neither the purchase prices nor the taxes paid for those deals were disclosed. (See the end of this article for more information about how the real estate transfer tax works.) But for the Pfizer sale, the check received by the county was enough to make senior clerk Susan Bracken Case gasp, then grin.

We initially heard that the UM/Pfizer documents would be filed at 10 a.m., so we headed over to the clerk/register of deeds office at 200 N. Main to observe the occasion. Turns out we were a little off on the timing – in fact, the final transaction with the county didn’t occur until around 2 p.m. But we were able to return and bear witness to the event, as did a guy who happened to walk in at the same time to ask about a tax lien – wearing shorts and a T-shirt amid a cluster of suits and ties, he seemed momentarily unsure if he was in the right place.

Much of the heavy lifting had been completed prior to Tuesday, but we asked John Cameron, an attorney with Dickinson Wright (and outside counsel for the university in this transaction) to fill us in on the final steps taken to close the deal that day.

A small group of attorneys had gathered at 9 a.m. in the Fleming Administration Building at the office of Ciara Comerford, who is UM assistant general counsel and the point person for the university on this deal. For about 90 minutes, they went over final details of the transaction – ensuring that no last-minute problems had arisen, making sure the university’s insurance on the property was in order, checking to see that the billing for gas, electricity and other utilities had been transferred to UM.

They then authorized the university treasurer’s office to wire funds for the purchase to First American Title in Chicago, which was the closing agent for this deal. Though the attorneys and staff at the clerk’s office would not disclose the purchase price, university officials previously have said they planned to pay $108 million for the 174-acre site on Plymouth Road, located near UM’s north campus and medical complex.

Liberty Title on Main Street, where some of the action took place Tuesday in closing the real estate deal between Pfizer and UM.

The attorneys waited until they’d received word that the transfer was verified – they’d been given a federal reference number as a way to track it in case problems arose, but none did – then they packed up their briefcases and headed over to Liberty Title, on Main Street just a block away from the county administration offices.

Liberty Title was the local agent for First American Title – Tom Richardson, Liberty Title’s co-president, said somewhat ruefully that they were not providing title insurance, which presumably would have meant a little more coin for his firm. Rather, they worked with the attorneys to review all the closing documents, a process which included making some minor changes and faxing papers back and forth between Liberty Title and First American Title, Cameron said. They checked to make sure each of the 20 or so documents were properly signed and notarized, and made a brief trip in the late morning to the clerk/register of deeds office to see if everything was in order from the county’s perspective.

At this point – and we’re not kidding – they called the university to send someone out to the property and verify that it was still standing and that all the property they’d agreed to purchase was there – including records and personal property, such as equipment. It was.

Back at the Liberty Title office, Cameron got on a conference call with the attorney representing Pfizer and the title insurance representative from First American Title. Each of them said something to the effect of “I’m authorizing you to close this transaction.”

Tom Richardson of Liberty Title, county clerk Larry Kestenbaum, attorney John Cameron and chief deputy clerk Jim Dries await the final document processing of UM’s purchase of the Pfizer research campus.

With that, the escrow officer for First American Title broke the escrow account, which freed up funds to pay the deal’s broker their brokerage commission and to pay the transfer tax, among other fees. The official closing also meant that the group in Ann Arbor was now authorized to record the documents with the county, so they crossed the street to the county administration offices. They got a tax certificate from the treasurer’s office – verifying that there were no back taxes owed on the property – then brought all the documents to the clerk/register of deeds, where the paperwork was recorded. The attorneys received time-stamped copies of the documents – the originals will be scanned into the county’s database and returned to them in a few days.

When Cameron concluded his description of the day, he said: “And now we’re going out to lunch. We’re done.”

It was a bit anti-climactic, in fact. Comerford of UM’s general counsel said there’d likely be some kind of celebration at the Pfizer site later in the day by the staff of the Medical School, which is paying more than $60 million of the purchase price and is taking the lead in determining how to use the space.

Some staff from the office of Hank Baier, UM’s associate vice president for facilities and operations, would also be part of whatever celebration ensued – Baier’s staff was on hand Tuesday at the Pfizer site to take over the management of the buildings and property from local representatives of the drug company, Comerford said.

Coda: Real Estate Transfer Tax

While the county couldn’t disclose the purchase price or transfer tax paid on the Pfizer property, chief deputy clerk Jim Dries did give The Chronicle a mini-tutorial on how the tax is calculated, as well as some data about how much transfer tax the county has collected over the past 20 years.

The seller is responsible for paying the Michigan real estate transfer tax (RETT) for the sale of real property, such as land or buildings (as opposed to personal property, such as equipment, appliances, furniture or other items that can be moved). The county collects the tax when the property deeds are presented to the register of deeds office for recording after a sale has closed.

The state gets the largest portion of the RETT: For every $1,000 of a property’s sale price, the state gets $7.50 and the county gets $1.10. So if the $108 million cited by UM were the price only for real property (an unlikely but possible scenario), then the county would have received about $119,000 in RETT, with the state receiving $810,000.

Why wasn’t the purchase price disclosed? State law does require that the price for real property be disclosed to the government, but it can be done in one of two ways: 1) on the deed, which is a public record, or 2) on a real estate transfer valuation affidavit, which can be filed when the deed is presented for recording. If an affidavit is filed, that keeps the transaction price confidential. Often you’ll see a property’s purchase price recorded as $1 on official public documents – that means an affidavit has been filed. Both major deals on Tuesday filed affidavits, so no information on the purchase prices was disclosed to the public.

But here’s some context: On Tuesday, the county collected RETT on 19 real property transactions, including the Chrysler and Pfizer deals. Gross receipts for transfer taxes on those 19 transactions totaled $1,053,551, including $918,498 in state RETT and $135,053 in county RETT.

The previous day (Monday, July 15), the county collected just $39,367 total, including $30,202 in state RETT and $9,164 in county RETT.

Overall, a drop in real estate prices and a slowdown in sales have resulted in a sharp drop in RETT revenue for the county, which peaked in 2005 at $2.54 million. Last year, RETT revenues fell slightly below $1.4 million. So far in 2009 (through July 16) RETT revenues are $482,300.

Finally, for data geeks among our readers, here’s a listing of county RETT revenue from 1988 through 2008:

-
1988 = $793,920
1989 = $795,316
1990 = $717,684
1991 = $738,481
1992 = $799,184
1993 = $896,369
1994 = $1,106,343
1995 = $1,057,454
1996 = $1,205,976
1997 = $1,449,923
1998 = $1,741,230
1999 = $1,834,796
2000 = $1,888,762
2001 = $1,878,522
2002 = $2,119,614
2003 = $2,238,317
2004 = $2,539,692
2005 = $2,542,227
2006 = $2,203,118
2007  = $1,844,344
2008 = $1,397,368

The sale of Pfizer’s property to UM wasn’t the only major deal to pass through the county clerk’s office on Tuesday. This 700-page document outlines details of Chrysler’s transfer of its Chelsea Proving Grounds to New Carco Acquisition LLC – the company that’s now holding some of Chrysler’s former assets following the automaker’s merger with Fiat.

Last year, Pfizer contested the assessed value that the city of Ann Arbor set for the drugmaker’s former research campus here. Pfizer, which closed its massive local R&D operation last year, argued that its Ann Arbor properties should be given a dramatically lower assessment – less than half of the value assigned by the city for 2008 and 2009.

A settlement reached earlier this month between Pfizer and the city of Ann Arbor is a compromise that’s now being reviewed by the Michigan Tax Tribunal. It lowers Pfizer’s assessment for 2008 and 2009, but not by as much as Pfizer requested. If approved, it will represent a total loss of roughly $10 million in tax revenues over the tw0-year period for all local entities that received taxes from Pfizer, including the city, Washtenaw County, Ann Arbor Public Schools, Washtenaw Community College and the Ann Arbor District Library. The tribunal is expected to make a ruling in the next few weeks, and is expected to approve the deal.

County administrator Bob Guenzel mentioned the settlement at a budget forum Tuesday morning for members of the business community, which The Chronicle attended. The county would take a nearly $1 million hit over the two years, he said – collecting $426,948 less in 2009 and owing Pfizer $557,989 from 2008.

Tom Crawford, the city’s chief financial officer, said Pfizer’s original proposal asked that taxes paid to all taxing authorities be lowered from a total of $12.5 million in 2008 and the same amount in 2009 to roughly $6.4 million in 2008 and $3.1 million in 2009. The compromise settlement does lower Pfizer’s taxes, but not by the full amount it requested.

For the city of Ann Arbor alone, Pfizer has been the largest taxpayer, bringing about $4 million in taxes to the city each year. If Pfizer had been 100% successful in its appeal, the city would have had to refund to Pfizer $2.1 million for 2008 and would have received $2.1 million less than expected for 2009. As a result of the settlement the city won’t lose that full amount, but it is getting nearly $3 million less over that two-year period. About half of the taxes from Pfizer are allotted to the general fund – the remaining taxes are paid to AATA, parks and other city entities.

Pfizer made its appeal in October 2008, so local entities were prepared for some kind of revenue loss. A May 18, 2009 memo from Ann Arbor city administrator Roger Fraser indicated that the city had budgeted $722,000 from its general fund reserve for fiscal 2010 to cover the potential Pfizer tax revenue loss to the general fund. And, in fact, under the settlement the city’s general fund will receive $695,494 less from Pfizer for that timeframe – an amount covered by the $722,000. [A complicating factor in this discussion is that tax years are based on calendar years, while the city's fiscal year runs from July 1 through June 30.]

Crawford said that a motivation for settling was the prospect of the appeal being dragged out over several years, with an unknown outcome.

As for other entities, Ann Arbor schools will get $3.38 million less than originally expected from Pfizer over the two years, while WCC will see a drop of $636,000 during that period. The library will receive $332,000 less.

Here’s how the settlement will be handled, according to a memo sent to local taxing entities on May 18 from Matthew Horning, the city’s treasurer:

For tax year 2009, the changes will be relatively easy to implement. Changes will be reflected in tax bills, and will be handled in the normal course of tax collection and distribution. The 2008 tax year is a bit more complicated. For real property, changes will be handled through the County Treasurer’s chargeback procedure. For personal property, changes will be handled by the City Treasurer.

An even bigger blow to tax revenues is yet to come, when the University of Michigan completes its purchase of the 174-acre Pfizer site next month. When that occurs, the property will be removed from the tax rolls completely, as the university is a tax-exempt institution.

This also comes at a time of overall significant decline in tax revenue. At Tuesday’s budget forum, Guenzel told the group that Washtenaw County’s three largest taxpayers have been General Motors, Pfizer and Ford/Visteon. Pfizer is gone, he noted, GM is on the brink and former Ford/Visteon plant in Ypsilanti is closed. Residential property tax revenues have fallen sharply too, and the county faces a possible $26 million deficit in the coming two years.

Jim Bell, center, chief administrative officer for the UM Medical School, chats with Marvin Parnes, right, associate vice president for research and executive director of research administration, and John Ballew, director of UM Health System facilities planning. They were awaiting the start of Tuesday's forum on possible uses for the Pfizer research campus.

Jim Woolliscroft was Harlan Hatcher’s personal physician, and near the end of the former University of Michigan president’s life, Woolliscroft made house calls to check in on him. That gave them time to talk. And one of the things they talked about was UM’s purchase of the property that became North Campus.

Hatcher told Woolliscroft that when UM leaders decided to buy the 800 acres of farmland north of Ann Arbor, they didn’t know exactly how they’d use it – but they knew it would transform the university.

Woolliscroft, dean of the UM Medical School, told that anecdote Tuesday afternoon to the 100 or so people gathered at a forum on the future of the Pfizer research campus, which UM is in the process of acquiring. This purchase isn’t quite as bold as the one made in the early 1950s, Woolliscroft said, but its potential to transform in unimaginable ways is great: “That opportunity is phenomenal.”

The forum was one of three held this year for faculty to talk about how the university will use the former Pfizer facility. Tuesday’s hour-long session focused on process, with administrators outlining just how they’ll go about deciding what academic research or other activities are located at the site.

There’s a lot of space to fill. The 174-acre piece of land, located off of Plymouth Road near UM’s North Campus, contains 30 buildings with just over 2 million square feet of space, including research wet labs and offices. The site also includes a pharmaceutical manufacturing building that’s fairly new, and a cafeteria that seats 800 people.

To cover the $108 million purchase price, the Medical School is paying $62 million, with UM Hospitals and Health Centers (HHC) picking up $15 million and $31 million coming from central administration. By comparison, the Medical School and HHC paid $245 million to build the Biomedical Science Research Building, known as the BSRB – a 435,00-square-foot structure that opened three years ago. Woolliscroft said the medical school had projected that its space needs by 2020 would require an amount of square footage equivalent to what was now available at the Pfizer site. Given that fact, plus the cost comparison with the BSRB, Woolliscroft said the Pfizer purchase made sense.

Woolliscroft expects the deal to be completed by June of this year – right now, the university is conducting due diligence before closing the deal, he said.

Meanwhile, Woolliscroft said that faculty and administrators need to think about how to organize their research and educational efforts, imagining new ways to do things that in the past weren’t possible because they didn’t have the space. Several committees are being pulled together to work on different aspects of this massive effort. Among them are:

• An external advisory group composed of scientists outside the university who will “hold our collective feet to the fire,” Woolliscroft said. They’ll be asked to provide scientific advice and direction, and will likely meet for the first time in September.
• A committee on facilities planning and logistics to coordinate due diligence efforts and prepare for things like security needs, lease consolidation and the operation of a power plant on the site.
• A group – led by UM professor and entrepreneur Jim Baker and associate vice president for research Marvin Parnes – to look at public/private partnerships. That could include designated space for start-up companies founded by UM faculty as well as incubator space for fledgling businesses.
• A committee to communicate the progress of these and other efforts. A key component of that will be the UM Research Growth website, Woolliscroft said, which will be updated as new information is available. He expects more activity on this front after the deal is completed – for now, they’re somewhat “muzzled” by the confidentiality agreement with Pfizer, he said.

Committees are also being formed to explore interdisciplinary collaboration in the areas of neurosciences, health sciences and drug discovery. Other areas are being identified, Woolliscroft said, and might include imaging, nanotechnology and cancer research, among others.

Before taking questions, Woolliscroft handed the presentation over to Steve Kunkel, the Medical School’s senior associate dean for research. Kunkel said they’ve been working for months to develop a research strategic plan related to this expansion, and he outlined some of the steps they’d taken. There are three tiers in their approach, he said: 1) Look for obvious strengths, 2) Find ways to leverage existing strengths into new areas, and 3) Develop “revolutionary” new areas of research – the most important goal, but also the most difficult, he said.

An assistant takes notes while Jim Woolliscroft, dean of the UM Medical School, fields a question from the audience at Tuesday's forum, held at the Chrysler Center on North Campus.

Following the main presentation, several people in the audience had questions for Woolliscroft. Ken Nisbet, executive director of UM’s Office of Technology Transfer, asked what the process and criteria were for deciding who moves into the Pfizer site. Woolliscroft said that some physician-scientists will locate their labs in the closest physical proximity to where they practice. In other cases, labs are dependent on samples that emanate from clinics, and again need to be close to that source.  The roles that faculty play will be a factor in deciding where to locate their work.

An administrator from the College of Engineering asked what the financial arrangements would be if engineering faculty wanted to use some of the Pfizer space. Woolliscroft said that to pay for the Medical School’s part of the acquisition, they’d be collecting about $7,000 per year from each of their faculty members over the next 10 years – the school has over 2,000 faculty. He said as other groups came in, they’d expect to work out an appropriate investment. Woolliscroft noted that each of UM’s colleges or schools is funded differently. The Medical School is self-funded, and charges its faculty for the space they use for offices and labs – roughly $43 per square foot for wet lab space, and about half that for office space, he said.

Someone from the audience asked whether the efforts at public/private partnerships would include the availability of specialized space, or a true incubator with support services. Both, Woolliscroft said. He added that there’s been a paucity of wet lab space available for startups in this area. “Now,” he said, “we’ve got it.”

One woman asked whether the slides shown at this presentation, which were quite detailed, would be posted on the Research Growth website. Not yet, Woolliscroft said. Though there’s nothing on the slides that violates their confidentiality agreement with Pfizer, they weren’t going to post that information until UM’s top administrators gave the go-ahead. [The Chronicle has put in a request for the slides, and will post them here when they are released.]

Another person said there’d been issues related to the integration of Central Campus and North Campus, and he wondered what the challenges would be to integrating yet another area – the Northeast Campus – into the rest of the university, and how they planned to address those challenges.

Transportation would be key, Woolliscroft said. One possibility would be to have a fleet of small buses that run regularly between the campuses, he said. But in his wildest dreams, he added, he envisioned a monorail or something akin to the People Mover, which would run from the south athletic campus all the way to the university’s north side. Other opportunities to draw people to the former Pfizer site would include the day care center there as well as the large cafeteria – figuring out how to do food service there is one of their tasks. “I don’t know all the answers,” he said.

Pfizer's Plymouth Road facility is largely vacated, except for the occasional snow angel.

Word about the University of Michigan’s plans to buy the former Pfizer research site had leaked out much earlier in the day, but UM regents waited until the end of their regular Thursday afternoon meeting before making it formal: The university will spend $108 million to buy the roughly 174-acre Plymouth Road complex, with plans to transform it into a major medical and scientific research hub. In the long term, university officials hope to add 2,000 jobs to the local economy over 10 years. But in the short term, the deal will take millions of dollars off the tax rolls for local governments at a time when they’re already anticipating budget shortfalls.

Comments made by regents and UM executives made it clear that they’d been considering this deal for some time. Local officials were informed either last night or this morning. Several interviewed by The Chronicle said they were concerned about the added financial strain – Pfizer paid a total of $12.5 million in taxes this year to various local entities, including about $4 million to Ann Arbor alone – but they were also optimistic that the UM purchase ultimately would help the local economy.

Details of the deal

UM will pay for the property – which includes nearly 2 million square feet of lab and office space in 30 buildings – primarily from reserves of the UM Health System, particularly funds set aside by the Medical School. A smaller portion of additional funding will come from investment income typically used for capital projects. The deal is expected to close sometime this summer. It’s the university’s largest property purchase since buying 300 acres for north campus in 1950.

The university has a general vision for the area, but hasn’t decided exactly what kinds of work will take place there, said UM President Mary Sue Coleman. The property, located on the city’s north side, is surrounded by land that’s part of UM’s north campus, which includes its College of Engineering. Its massive medical complex is just south of that area. Broadly, the university will use the Pfizer complex to provide research space, possibly for cell biology, stem cell, nanotechnology and other types of medical research. UM might move entire institutes or research centers there, but precise plans are expected to take 12-18 months to develop.

Bob Kelch, CEO of the UM Health System, speaks to reporters about the Pfizer property purchase.

Bob Kelch, CEO of the UM Health System and executive vice president for medical affairs, said the university has never had sufficient research space, a shortage that has hurt research productivity as well as recruitment. The Pfizer space will allow UM to develop more collaborative efforts, he said, both between different units within the university – such as engineering and medicine – and between the university and the private sector.

Several university officials hammered on the theme of economic development, saying that they were committed to helping the local, regional and state economy. “We’re living at the center of the economic contraction,” said Steve Forrest, vice president for research. Buying the Pfizer site sends a powerful message that the university is committed to the state, he said, and that it’s growing. Forrest added that UM plans to “aggressively” increase its partnerships with industry.

Regent Larry Deitch gave a bit of historical context for the deal, reminding the group that UM had sold Pfizer 55 acres of property for about $27 million in 2002, when Lee Bollinger was president. The university initially wasn’t interested in selling the land, Deitch said, but did so when they were told that if they didn’t, Pfizer would leave. “So we sold them the land, and they left,” he joked. But in crafting that deal, UM’s legal staff had added a clause that let UM retain rights to the land if Pfizer departed, as they eventually did. Deitch praised the staff for their foresight in that decision.

From left: Washtenaw County commissioner Mark Ouimet, Ann Arbor city councilmembers Leigh Greden and Margie Teall, and city administrator Roger Fraser watch as the regents discuss their decision to buy Pfizer property.

Local impact

Because the deal won’t likely close until mid-2009, Pfizer will still pay local taxes on the site next year. That gives local officials some breathing room as they face the loss of their largest taxpayer. (As a public institution, UM does not pay taxes.)

Of the $12.5 million in total local taxes paid by Pfizer in 2008, about $1.3 million went to county coffers. Washtenaw County prepares its budgets on a two-year cycle, and will begin looking at the 2010-11 budget early next year. The county had already projected lower revenues from a weak housing market that has dropped property taxes, “so now this is added to the mix,” said county administrator Bob Guenzel, who attended Thursday’s regents meeting. Pfizer taxes account for about 1% of the county’s $107 million annual budget.

Yet Guenzel said despite the challenge, he has confidence that UM is making economic development a priority, and that the purchase will pay off for the community in the long run. Guenzel also serves on the board of Ann Arbor Spark, the local economic development agency that’s been helping Pfizer shop the site around to potential buyers. He said he was informed of the purchase on Thursday morning, when he got a phone call from Jim Kosteva, UM’s director of community relations.

John Hieftje, Ann Arbor’s mayor, recently had coffee with Coleman but didn’t hear about the Pfizer deal until she called him Wednesday night. In 2008, taxes from Pfizer represented 4.85% of the total property taxes collected by the city. But Hieftje, too, believes the purchase will be good for the overall economy, especially if the jobs that UM hopes to add actually materialize.

UM President Mary Sue Coleman answers a reporter's question about the Pfizer property deal.

Responding to a question from a Michigan Radio reporter, Coleman said the university would have been happy if another buyer had come forward for the property. When Pfizer announced it was closing its Ann Arbor operation two years ago, she had been hesitant to pursue the property, in part because of concerns over the tax implications for the community. But the economy changed over that period, she said, making other buyers scarce. And as the university looked more closely at the property, they realized it was a better fit than they’d originally envisioned.

As the university’s research agenda and capacity increases due to the expansion into Pfizer’s site, they expect to hire more faculty, post-doctorate researchers and research staff, Coleman said. Those higher-paying jobs will benefit the economy, she said, noting that the same is true for jobs created as the result of partnerships with the private sector.

“And if we really cram people in there,” Coleman said, “maybe we can hire 4,000 people.”

Media coverage

Regents meetings normally don’t draw a lot of media attention, but UM put out a press release Thursday morning saying there’d be a “major announcement” at the meeting, and several news outlets, including The Chronicle, reported that the purchase of Pfizer’s research campus was on the table. So Thursday’s meeting was well attended by print, radio and TV reporters.

During the meeting, Regent Andi Fischer Newman apologized to Ann Arbor News reporter Dave Gershman, saying that he’d emailed her on Wednesday asking if the announcement was on Thursday’s agenda and she told him no – but what she didn’t say was “not at this time.”

Other news reports: Ann Arbor News, Ann Arbor Business Review, Detroit Free Press, Detroit News, Crain’s Detroit Business, Michigan Radio

The media mini-mob at Thursday's UM regents meeting.

Ann Arbor News reporter Stefanie Murray interviews Mike Finney, CEO of Ann Arbor Spark, in the UM Regents room on Thursday. News photographer Lon Horwedel is videotaping the interview.

Reporters Marisa Schultz from the Detroit News and Ryan Beene from Crain's Detroit Business work on stories following the UM regents meeting on Thursday.

Reaction to the news from Ward 5 councilmember Carsten Hohnke was unambiguous: “The impact of removing $1.5 million from our tax rolls can not be overstated. I’m extremely disappointed that the University could not find a way to be a more creative and equitable partner with the city in this.”

Petanque boules (shiny metal) bracket the cochonnet, or jack, on Howard Ando and Jane Wilkinson's court.

The couple’s own set of metal boules were dull with the wear of frequent play on the gravel surface typical for petanque. Over the last two years, much of that play has come on the rectangle of gravel in the side yard of the couple’s Ypsilanti home, just west of the Eastern Michigan University campus.

After seeing the game played during their visits to France, they developed a passion for it that led them to have their own court constructed. And now they’d like to invest in petanque for the public – they’ve offered to pony up the cash for a facility in Burns Park. A public meeting to discuss the potential facility will be held on Monday, Nov. 17 starting at 7:30 p.m. at the Ann Arbor Senior Center at Burns Park.

The wintry slop falling out of the sky on Saturday led us to opt for a pleasant living-room conversation instead of chasing a little pig across the piste (court) – the jack, or cochonnet, also translates as “piglet.” In petanque, the jack plays a role similar to that in bocce, which might be more familiar to some readers.

Petanque does not require a huge investment in equipment. But there are some optional gadgets. The magnet on the left end of this telecoping wand can be used for boule retrieval. The flexible claw on the opposite end can be used to pick snatch the cochonnet (green ball).

After throwing the jack, the game continues with teams alternating throws of the metal boules, with the object being to conclude a round with one or more boules closer to the jack than the opposing team’s boules. Strategy is not unlike curling, where decisions must be made about whether to try to place a boule close to the jack (pointing), or rather to send one’s metal sphere crashing into an opposing boule that is already closely placed (shooting).

Petanque differs from curling in that the target is not permanently marked on the playing surface, but rather varies as the jack is thrown. And of course, petanque is also played on a gravel surface, not ice as in curling.

Assuming that any concerns that could arise at Monday’s meeting are adequately addressed, construction of the facility at Burns Park would likely entail something similar to the simple process used to build Ando and Wilkinson’s court: excavate to a certain depth; fill with coarse gravel; throw in a layer of landscape fabric; top off with a finer gravel. What the lousy wet weather on Saturday demonstrated was that any concerns (already raised at a Park Advisory Commission meeting in August) about petanque facilities adding to the impervious surface of the city are unfounded. No puddling or pooling was visible on the surface.

At that August PAC meeting Ando estimated the cost of construction at around $20,000. But at the October PAC meeting, the cost estimate provided by city staff was substantially greater. Colin Smith of the city’s parks and recreation staff told commissioners that the cost to build a petanque facility is estimated between $50,000 and $75,000, depending on amenities. The key to the difference in estimates likely lies in the nature of those amenities.

The offer of financial support from the couple comes with the added bonus of a 1-1 match from Pfizer if the money is donated this year. Ando is a retired employee of the pharmaceutical company.

So what exactly do Ando and Wilkinson find so attractive about petanque? Part of the appeal lies in the egalitarian nature of the game. The name of the game itself reflects a heritage of accessibility (it’s not onomatopoetic, reflecting how the balls land, as in “kerplunk”). The name petanque derives from “Les Ped Tanco” in a Provençal dialect, which means “feet together” – contrasting this game with others that allow a running start. The inventor of petanque suffered from rheumatism, which prevented him from executing the athletically powerful maneuver of a throw with a running start. This led him in 1907 to create a game disallowing such throws.

Another point for accessibility of the game is that the metal boules can be picked by using a magnet tied to a string or attached to a telescoping wand. That means people who can’t easily bend over or people who get around using wheelchairs can participate fully in the game without relying on others. The business card that Ando uses for this project reads, “Petanque Ann Arbor, a sport for everyone.”

Petanque court in the east side yard of Howard Ando and Jane Wilkinson's home in Ypsilanti.

The phrasing “a sport for everyone” might suggest to some readers it’s not competitive. On the contrary. The sport has conducted a world championship since 1959, with the 2008 edition starting last Thursday in Dakar. Asked if they kept track of their match records in the petanque games they play against each other, Wilkinson and Ando said they didn’t. Asked a second time, Wilkinson reflected a moment on an occasion when she had won recently and laughed, “Howard said, ‘That’s good, because I won the three before,’ so maybe he is keeping score!

So why did Ando and Wilkinson choose Burns Park in Ann Arbor instead of a park in Ypsilanti, where they live, to offer their financial support of a petanque facility? It has to do with the fact that their vision is a bit more ambitious than a single petanque court in a single park. They’d like to see the sport really catch on in the region to the point where the facilities are more commonplace. And Burns Park, they said, seemed like a strategically good choice: it’s proximate to both the Ann Arbor Senior Center and Burns Park Elementary School, which brings a built-in geographic constituency.

That’s also why it makes sense to hold the public meeting there on Monday evening. If there are concerns from neighbors – about exact location, possibilities of increased neighborhood traffic, loss of a favorite path through the park as a cut-through, too much French being spoken – it will be convenient for them to make those concerns heard. The meeting is also for any residents who just want to learn more about the game of petanque, or for those who are excited about the potential for petanque.  For residents who have a scheduling conflict for the meeting, the city of Ann Arbor park planner who is handling the petanque facility is Amy Kuras, who can be reached by email at akuras@a2gov.org