Lamp Post Plaza owner Ron Marten has heard the rumors too. Although the sixty-three-year-old shopping center on E. Stadium is being sold, “it is not getting bulldozed,” he tells the Observer.

“Over the years you hear everything. Every time a tenant moves or somebody changes, people are knocking on the door, coming up with the wildest things,” he says. “None of it’s true, and most of it’s entertaining.”

Marten says the plaza—including three single-story buildings totaling 33,720 square feet—is under contract to “another group, just like us, that manages real estate.” He hopes the sale will close this year, and “as far as I know, it’s going to continue on for many years the way it is.”

Retirement is the reason for selling, he says, and it’s not related to the property’s inclusion in a 2024 rezoning to TC1, which aims to facilitate mixed-use, walkable development along transit corridors such as Washtenaw Ave. and Plymouth Rd. The neighboring parcel, the former University Inn opened in 1957 as Lamp Post Motel, is transforming into a four-story, 185-unit housing complex.

Related: Changing the Guard at Lamp Post Plaza

Lamp Post Plaza’s largest tenant, Trader Joe’s, remains under lease and is “not moving out,” Marten says. “I have heard that they’ve been looking for a second location for two or three years, but there’s nobody at Trader Joe’s that would tell you anything.”

Nakia Rohde, public relations manager for the California-based grocery chain, responding to an inquiry about its rumored interest in the former Rite Aid store in Westgate Shopping Center, emails, “We are actively looking at hundreds of neighborhoods across the country, including in Ann Arbor, as we hope to open more new neighborhood stores each year. At this time, we do not have a new location confirmed in Ann Arbor.”

Meanwhile, Marten says a more likely redevelopment candidate is his vacant commercial property at 2355 W. Stadium. (SBK Orthodontics recently moved down the road into the former CARite dealership.)

“It’s for sale,” he says. “It’s TC1. Sell it for me!” The one-acre parcel with frontage on W. Stadium, S. Maple, and Winewood Ave. is listed at $4.6 million.

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This article has been edited since it was published in the November 2025 Ann Arbor Observer. The spelling of Ron Marten’s name has been corrected.