The Chaldean Community Foundation is planning to develop a mixed-use project in Sterling Heights next year. The property will include street-level retail and 200 apartments on its upper floors, Crain's Detroit Business reports.

The foundation has inked a deal to buy vacant property in the North VanDyke Riverland District, a redevelopment district from north of 18½ Mile Road to the city limits at M-59.

The goal of the development is to provide housing to some of the 1,100 Chaldean families seeking long-term housing in the region, foundation President Martin Manna said.

Also, the foundation plans to nearly triple the size of its community center in Sterling Heights, which it completed only two years ago.

Chaldeans are a sect of Christianity affiliated with the Catholic Church, among ethnic Assyrians from Iraq and Syria. Waves of immigration in the 1970s and 1980s, but also more recently, have resulted in a Chaldean community of as many as 160,000 in Michigan.