Cliffs Landing

Six phases, several associations

This is the structural fact that catches buyers out, and it is worth getting straight before comparing any two listings. The Cliffs is not one condominium project. It is a series of phases built over roughly fifteen years, and several separate associations govern them — the phases are sometimes referred to as though they were simply sections of one development, which they are not.

What that means practically is that dues, what those dues cover, the reserve position, the rules and the condition of the buildings can all differ from one phase to the next while the addresses look nearly identical. Amenities vary too: depending on the phase there may be gated access with security patrols, an outdoor pool and pool house, or a dog run, and there may not be.

So the first question on any listing here is which association it belongs to, followed by that association's own budget, reserve study, bylaws and minutes. A comparable sale in a neighboring phase may be governed by a different document set entirely, which makes it a much weaker comparable than the address suggests.

Deeded boat slips, and what deeded means

A deeded boat slip is a property right rather than a privilege, and that distinction is the whole reason it carries value. Where a slip is deeded, the right attaches to the unit and transfers with it; where access is instead a common-element privilege, the association allocates it and can change how.

The questions to answer are therefore specific. Is the slip deeded to this particular unit, and which recorded document says so. If it is assigned rather than deeded, on what basis and can it be lost. What size of craft does it accommodate, what does the association permit, and is there a separate charge for maintenance of the docks.

How Ford Lake came to exist

Ford Lake is not a natural lake. Henry Ford designed the dam that made it, built between May 1931 and July 1932 on the Huron River and originally called the Rawsonville Dam. The point was power: the hydroelectric project supplied all the electricity Ford's Ypsilanti plant needed in its early years. It was the water that brought Ford to Ypsilanti in the first place.

The lake covers 975 acres with a maximum depth of about thirty feet toward its eastern end. By 1969 the Ypsilanti plant had grown enough that the dam could meet only a quarter of its demand, and in July of that year Ford gift-deeded the hydroelectric project and the adjoining lake property to the City and Township of Ypsilanti. The Joint Ypsilanti Recreation Organization ran it until January 1989, when ownership passed to the Charter Township of Ypsilanti, which owns and operates it today.

That ownership history is why so much of the shoreline is public parkland rather than private frontage — and it is why private frontage and deeded slips, where they exist, are a comparatively scarce commodity on this lake.

The lake's water quality — the honest version

The lake has struggled with water quality for decades, and two issues matter before you buy on it.

The first is fish. Ford Lake carries a do-not-eat fish consumption advisory, and the Huron downstream of the Ford Lake Dam to the I-275 crossing carries a do-not-eat advisory for carp, catfish, gizzard shad, largemouth bass, smallmouth bass and suckers, driven by PFOS. The second is algae. Excessive phosphorus holds oxygen levels below what the ecosystem needs and feeds algae growth; a harmful algal bloom was confirmed in September 2024 with microcystin toxin above the EPA's recommended recreational limit, and a public health advisory applied to any water showing a blue-green or green cast.

None of that makes this a poor place to live, and Ypsilanti Township actively monitors the lake with the aim of getting ahead of blooms. But on a property whose central feature is a deeded boat slip, it changes what the water is worth. Swimming and fishing conditions vary by season and by year; check current advisory status with the county health department and the state.

Buildings from the 1960s and 1970s

Construction between 1968 and 1982 puts the earliest buildings here well past fifty years and the newest past forty. In a condominium, the building envelope, the roofs, the drives and the major systems sit with the association rather than the individual owner, which makes the reserve position the single most consequential number in the transaction.

At this age those items are not theoretical. Roofs have been replaced at least once and are due again. Original plumbing risers and electrical service in buildings of the era are live questions. Balconies and decks over water-adjacent ground need periodic structural attention, and window and door systems from the 1970s are long past their design life.

Where this actually is

Cliffs Landing is in Washtenaw County, on the north shore of Ford Lake in Ypsilanti Township, with a 48198 address and Ypsilanti Community Schools. It is sometimes taken for Canton, which is Wayne County and roughly twelve miles east.

Ypsilanti Township surrounds the City of Ypsilanti and is a separate government with its own taxes and services — township rates rather than city rates, which is a real part of the proposition here. Its parks system runs to some thirty parks and facilities totalling more than 900 acres, much of it along the lake that Ford deeded over.

School districts here follow neither the township line nor the city line. The wider Ypsilanti area is divided among Ypsilanti Community, Lincoln Consolidated and Van Buren districts.

An unresolved question in the township

Anyone buying in Ypsilanti Township in 2026 should know about this, because it is live, it is large, and it is not settled.

The University of Michigan is planning a computational research center and data center on a 144-acre site along the Huron River in the township, developed with Los Alamos National Laboratory at a reported cost of around $1.25 billion. The university describes it as a high-performance computing facility supporting medicine, climate science, energy and national security, and the plans include a classified building of roughly 240,000 square feet alongside a smaller non-classified one. The university closed on the 124-acre Textile Road parcel in March 2026, adding it to twenty adjoining acres it already owned, and confirmed Textile Road as the selected site in August.

The township has opposed it formally. Its Board of Trustees passed a resolution against the project at a special meeting on March 31, 2026, and on August 18 unanimously adopted a six-month moratorium on large electric utility structures, having also examined a moratorium on power transmission as a way of slowing the project. Public meetings through the summer drew large crowds, and residents and officials have continued to press against it.

What matters for a buyer is that a project of this scale, contested by the local government, is genuinely unresolved, and that its outcome could affect traffic, utility infrastructure and the character of parts of the township. Anyone buying here should check the current status directly with the township.

Buying or selling here

The comparable set here is narrower than the number of units on the lake suggests, because phase and association matter as much as floor plan. Match on phase first, then on floor plan and outlook, then adjust for what the specific association actually covers.

Every one of those will be asked for, and having them ready is the difference between a clean sale and a renegotiated one.

For a buyer, the order is the slip document first, the association's finances second, the fifty-year building systems third, and the lake's current advisory status checked directly — because if the water is the reason for the purchase, its condition is not a detail.