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More construction ground breaking at GRR. This time for a new garage for the snow plows and blowers: GRR PRESS RELEASE: Ford International Airport Breaks Ground on $8.5 Million Snow Removal Equipment Building The placard in the press release photo of the ground breaking dirt pile doesn't seem to match the press release content:

The biggest real estate news in a long time: FREE PRESS: GM will relocate headquarters from RenCen to Bedrock's new Hudson's building

WOODTV: One person was shot and killed in Grand Rapids Saturday morning, police say.

Above is the last paragraph of a post I made last September about Family Promise buying up a couple of local trailer parks to house the homeless before any hedge funds did. Today Mlive has a story about pretty much what I was writing about. Deep in the story there is a local connection concerning a business that provides rental data to the alleged co-conspirators: So far there is no paywall - MLIVE: Price-fixing cartel- Big Michigan mobile home park owners accused of conspiracy EDIT: There now appears to be a paywall. Here's a backway into the story that so far works via NEWSBREAK: NEWSBREAK: Price-fixing cartel- Big Michigan mobile home park owners accused of conspiracy

Actually, it wasn't really the green hair I had a problem with so I probably deserved the comment RegalTDP made about my post. It was the marketing part of her LinkedIn that made me skeptical. There was nothing there that I could detect that said to me credible journalist. Instead it made me think of a publicist managing to get a client's name in a publication.

If they would have planned ahead, rather than Corewell, they could have rebranded Spectrum as Fairbanks Health (a much nicer sounding meaningless name) then there would be no problem with the street.

Big expansion of the terminal announced today. They are going to expand and consolidate all the ticketing area to the west and the baggage handling to the east. From the looks of the requisite photo of the officials and politicians with their shovels moving a pile of dirt, I think they were digging on the wrong side of the street from the terminal. Keeps them out of the way I guess,: GRR PRESS RELEASE: Ford International Airport Breaks Ground on $135 Million Terminal Enhancement Project

This is just my skepticism I suppose but I don't take seriously articles written by marketing people with bright green hair: LINKEDIN: Goldie Chan

I mentioned your comments to my wife as we were driving east on 54th today and we were coming up to this building. I explained to her how this was a preferable urban design having the building right along the sidewalk and next to the bus stop. Partly I think because she was in a mood to cause trouble and argue with me, she said the idea that they planned this to be urban friendly was ridiculous and they probably just placed the building there because that was the best fit for the lot. For some reason the Kum & Go people think it is a good idea to build three new stores fairly close to each other along 54th Street. So, we continue east. The other two; one at Eastern and the other at Kalamazoo, are both set back on their lots. One of them, I think it was the one on Eastern, has a bus stop adjoining the property but it is not at all close to the building. Personally, I’d like to think that maybe someone really meant the building on Division to be close to the sidewalk and it wasn’t just an unrelated design decision. EDIT: actually the two other stores past Division are technically along 52nd Street, not 54th. Past Division, 54th takes a turn north then again back east to become 52nd.

WOODTV had a story the other day about three Grand Rapids sites that are being added to the national register of historic places. Two of the three are old factories that we’ve discussed here on urbanplanet. The most popular being the old Sligh factory at Century and Logan. The other is the Clipper Belt Lacer Company building on Front. The third is a large residence on Leonard NW. While so far as I can recall we’ve never discussed that house, several years ago I wrote about the members of the architectural firm that designed it, Frank Allen and Son. Although even though Frank Allen Sr. was well known in his time himself, I wrote mostly about his two sons. The firm’s name says son rather than sons because they both didn’t work for him at the same time. Here's the link to the WOODTV story: WOODTV: GR Properties added to National Register of Historic Places Here’s a link to the urbanplanet posts concerning Clipper Belt Lacer Company building: URBANPLANET: Clipper Belt Lace Building Probably no one needs a link to the Sligh Factory thread but here it is anyway: URBANPLANET: Sligh Furniture Block Redevelopment OK, the rest of this is getting pretty deep into the weeds. Here are a couple of links to posts I did back in 2010 about Frank Allen and Son, the architects of the Andrew and Olive Crane Kendale House at 2350 Leonard St. NW, the third property added to the historic register: URBANPLANET: Roger Allen and the GR Museum: URBANPLANET: ROGER AND FRANK ALLEN JR BIO The links embedded in the bio link above are old and broken. There is no current link to the CMU data but below are good links to the two Frank Jr documents: SANDIEGO HISTORY: Allen Bio SANDIEGO HISTORY: Allen Images The world’s fair area in San Diego that Frank Jr. developed is pretty much the current San Diego Balboa Park which includes the famous San Diego Zoo. Many of the fair building are still there in use along with the Cabrillo Bridge. When I drove over the bridge a few years ago I didn’t realize it because from the road you are not aware of the structure below and it’s now surrounded by buildings. I haven’t found any specific detailed bio document about Frank Allen Sr. Besides residences he designed many factories in the Grand Rapids area, including the Belding Silk factories that later became the Gibson Appliance factories in Belding and Greenville. From what I’ve read and heard, both Roger and Frank Jr. were known for finishing projects on time and in budget. Another residence designed by Frank P Alan and Son that is on the Historical Register is the Felt Mansion. It is on the dunes in Laketown Township near Saugatuck. Unlike many of their other projects that they completed fast, the Felt Mansion took three years to complete: WIKIPEDIA: Dorr E Felt Mansion THE FELT ESTATE A HIDDEN GEM OF WEST MICHIGAN HISTORY WIKIPEDIA: The melon heads legend

While I was writing my essay above, Khorasaurus was writing a better and briefer answer than mine:

I am not a civil engineer and I could be wrong but I think there is likely an infrastructure reason. So far the retention pond and the new retention wall behind it are not pretty. I don't think it is an amenity that makes this development more attractive. It is not obvious from the birds eye view rendering but this property is entirely on a gentle slope with the lowest portion in the area where the retention pond is located. They've laid and buried a lot of large storm sewer pipe already on the property that I assume will feed into the retention pond. My uneducated guess is that the current storm sewers on Byron Center Road and 52nd Street may not be adequate to handle the additional run-off from a storm from up the hill. This looks like it should be a prime piece of property but its been up for sale and I think bought and sold at least a couple of times in the last twenty years, so I think there might be some not obvious problem with it. Too busy right now to take a shot of the new retention pond and wall. Instead here's what Google saw at the retention corner last time they drove by before the construction:

Looks like another new Frontier destination not to get excited about: CRAINS: Frontier adds nonstop three times a week to Atlanta EDIT: Not about GRR but here's a local story and video about flying I just ran across after posting the above that's much more exciting (or at least more bizarre) than Frontier adding a thrice weekly flight to an existing destination : FOX17: Single-engine plane lands outside Coopersville diner, takes off

I've noticed the last few months there's been a lot of dirt moved around and a big retaining wall built on property at Byron Center Road and 52nd Street. And the other day I noticed the first building going up in a far corner of the property. Couldn't find a good place to take a picture from the ground and I don't feel like buying a drone, so no breaking news photo. I don't think anyone has posted anything about this here. I did find this old article about the development. The landscape work they've done seems to match the rendering in the article. Anyway, 178 market rate apartments in fifteen buildings: MLIVE: 12-22-2022 - Byron Center Rd and 52nd Street

Same old news: WZZM13: Grand Rapids housing shortage even worse than realtor expected