Livonia has a premier central location with two freeways that connects a resident or worker to just about every major metro Detroit destination in less than 30 minutes. For a Livonia resident, this makes for short drives to the area’s sports stadiums, Ann Arbor, Detroit Zoo, Greenfield Village and Henry Ford Museum, and just about all of the region’s major employment centers. For a Livonia business, workers have short drives to Metro Airport and easy access to numerous research and development centers and universities.

Livonia has gained recognition as a regional hub for higher education with its convenient central location, facilities for seven colleges and universities, and for recent, significant investments made to upgrade a number of those local buildings and campuses.


Madonna University is spending some $20 million to construct a new eco-friendly media and science center, which is scheduled to open in Spring 2009. Schoolcraft College recently completed a $12 million project to construct a new building for medical, math and science courses. Davenport University opened a new 40,000-square-foot building in Fall 2008. Also in 2008, Eastern Michigan University expanded its satellite facility in Livonia.

A number of Livonia’s hotels have undergone major renovations in recent years. Tens of millions of dollars have been pumped into several Livonia hotels in recent years, including the Radisson Hotel and Conference Center, Marriott Hotel, Hyatt Place, Residence Inn by Marriott, Best Western Laurel Park Suites. A major renovation is planned for the Embassy Suites Hotel in 2009. This provides Livonia with hundreds of new first-class rooms for weekday business customers, weekend family customers, and comfortable quarters for production personnel in the state’s growing movie industry.

The auto supply company, Tower Automotive moved 300 employees into Livonia in Fall 2008. Also in 2008, Bill Brown Ford emerged as one of the nation’s top-performing Ford dealerships in the country.