Imlay Twp. approves French Drain Man site plan

IMLAY TWP. — The French Drain Man is coming to Imlay Township and he’s bringing 60 jobs with him. 

The Imlay Township Board of Trustees voted unanimously last month to approve Robert Sherwood’s site plan for the first of two parcels on Graham Road. 

After three reviews by township planners over the past eight months, the vote was almost anti-climactic, with the vote taking a matter of minutes. 

Township Supervisor Rick Farkas noted Sherwood will have to come back to the planning commission for approval to build a corporate headquarters on a second parcel on M-21 (Capac Road).

Sherwood, who has been in business since 1986, is planning to relocate his distribution center from Almont to a nine-acre site on the 200 block of Graham Road and establish a corporate headquarters on a second parcel on a four-acre site at the corner of Graham Road and East Imlay City Road, (Old M-21).  

He told planning commission members in June that the total project will cost an estimated $4 million.

Sherwood said the project will initially move 20 employees from Almont to Imlay Township, but over the next five years the project will generate 40 new jobs.

Sherwood is planning to build two 80-by-146-foot, 20-foot-tall buildings on four of the site’s nine acres. The remaining five acres is a pond. The site is already heavily wooded, planning commission members voted in June to not require Sherwood to do additional landscaping. 

“Ninety percent of what we want is already there,” Farkas said. “We’ll be lucky to see his building.” 

“It’s kind of a waste,” said Planning Commission Chairman Michon Thompson, “no one is going to see it anyway.”

However, planning commission members did want to see more detail on the site plans. They said they could read the distances marked on the footprints for lighting on the site.

They also wanted more information on how much noise equipment on the site will generate. “I’ve got nothing louder than that train,” Sherwood said. 

Still, he said he would provide the township board with information on the sound levels of his equipment and more detailed site maps. 

Sherwood said he’ll be back before the planning commission later this year with plans for his second site. 

He began as a contractor installing high-end back yard oases. However, during the Great Recession that market dried up. 

Sherwood said he discovered there was a lot of interest in residential drainage products. He began by acquiring a variety of drainage products and packaging them as kits. 

Eventually, he started designing and manufacturing his own parts and now holds 20 patents.