GAINES CHARTER TOWNSHIP, Mich. -- Microsoft has announced it will hold an open house next Tuesday, March 3 in Gaines Township to present information about its proposed development of a data center on Patterson Avenue, south of 68th Street in Dutton.
Gaines Community Development Director Dan Wells said it is not a township meeting but one that Microsoft is holding on its own. However, he and some other township staff members plan to attend it.
"“Just to answer residents’ questions, but we’re not actually part of the display," he said during Thursday night's monthly Gaines Township Planning Commission meeting at the township hall.
"They will have multiple people there from their land development, engineering design group, along with their community affairs folks," Wells said.
The open house will be held Tuesday in the Kindred Event Center at 3449 76th St. SE, near Hanna Lake Avenue in Caledonia. That will run from 4 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
Gaines Township officials say they anticipate the rescheduled planning commission meeting to consider Microsoft’s rezoning request on Patterson Avenue will take place in early April.
Microsoft is seeking approval to have a 40.5-acre parcel it owns at 7147 Patterson Ave. rezoned from a large-scale planned unit development to the light industrial designation it is future-zoned for in the township’s zoning ordinance.
The undeveloped property is immediately south of the Amazon Fulfillment Center, and north of a 316-acre site Microsoft bought in 2024 on Patterson Avenue at 76th Street. That larger parcel was purchased from Steelcase.
The original public hearing on the proposal was postponed by planning commission at their December 18, 2025, meeting due to what the township attorney and fire marshal said was an overcapacity problem at the township hall. They estimated that more than 250 people tried to pack into the boardroom.
A special meeting dedicated to the rezoning request was later scheduled for Feb. 12 in the South Christian High School auditorium. But Microsoft requested in a Feb. 5 email to the township staff that that meeting be postponed, as well, and possibly be rescheduled for late March. Township Manager Rod Weersing later told WOOD Radio News that the planning commission's special meeting likely will be held in early April to consider the rezoning request.
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