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Hoping to be completed by sometime in mid October. All rough-ins are done or very near completion.

Photographer Brian Kelly is shooting photos for the Grand Rapids Convention and Visitors Bureau Sunday evening at The Winchester. I was told photos would be used for promotional material. It's pretty exciting for the City to select a spot on Wealthy St., as a location for visitors to explore and a draw for new people to Grand Rapids. That's a ringing endorsement that renovations are well on there way along Wealthy.

I actually like Del Taco and always stop at one when I'm out West. I'd say Shoney's or Stuckey's is much worse.

I spoke with this developer yesterday and his feelings toward the Ren Zone extension was mixed. He was only given an extension for 1/2 the project, the lower floor retail, and not the upstairs residential. As a result, he said he's weighing his options at this point, but the redevelopment project is not going forward.

Unfortunately there is no mention of why the Stokes home is for sale. I suppose that could be a story for another section of USA Today.

My wife and I were driving in the car Saturday afternoon and laughed when we heard another day sponsor's name on NPR. The name given was a Mike Hunt. No lie. We looked at each other just to make sure we heard it right, then started laughing out loud.

I stopped by the Dragon Room on Saturday evening, around 10pm. The place was pretty steady, but was essentially just another bar in downtown GR this night because no one was able to eat. Like any start up, they probably have a few kinks to work out. Apparently they ran out of food Friday night and had some less than positive service issues. I'm sure these will get worked out, I hope anyway, but being open just 3 days a week may make the task more difficult. It reminded me of a nicer (new Gilmore concept) Monkey Bar in the basement of the BOB. I would say the crowd was the same for the most part.

If you look in the alley between San Chez and Taps, you'll see that San Chez also runs all of their venting along the outside of the building. They've painted their venting to match the brick, I believe required by HPC, so it's not too noticable. I'd assume the exterior venting on 1 Ionia will also be painted to match the brick, but given the current temperatures outside, this likely won't be done until the spring. I suppose the alternative is to vent through 4 interior floors and a roof, but I'm sure that would have been extremely cost prohibitive to any operation. If this venting is for a kitchen hood, shouldn't we see more venting soon along the exterior of the building to provide return air? Or perhaps this is the return air and there is not going to be a kitchen.

You're definitely right. I was being sarcastic in my post. This is definitely an illegal operation.

Yesterday I was at Barstools & More on Lake Eastbrook and the Beltline looking for new pub furniture. Somehow the subject changed to some new developments going on in the Heritage Hill and near surrounding neighborhood. The sales lady, very nice person, starts telling me a story about a customer who came in a few days earlier, loud, crass, lot's of offensive language, looking for 20 stools for a "strip club in Heritage Hill." At close to $100 a stool, that's a pretty substantial investment. One still has to buy the stripper pole and given today's metal prices, that's not going to be cheap either. Perhaps I missed something and wasn't aware City Planning already had a meeting for a special land use. My prediction - Something is going to be in the news, and probably not positive, in the next year.

I believe Kelly Butler, a local football standout and player in the NFL, is a partner in this project. From what I've heard and through someone who walked away from this project (2nd hand), it's not going to be a place you'll find many UPers.

I did a similar tour like this about 3 years ago. I'm not sure if they were the 5 oldest churches, but looked at the architecture and the stain glass windows. I don't remember who put it on, it could have been part of the art museum. St Adolphus St Mary's Park Congregational Fountain St. (we didn't get on the bus for St. Andrews because the nice little old lady at St. Mary's spend 5 minutes talking about each stain glass. The tour leader had to stop her after the 6th of 12 stain glass windows.) St Andrews Anyone is welcome to poke their head in at the Winchester. The framing for the new store front went in yesterday afternoon. The big wood structure is ready to come down soon.

I agree with curb appeal, much like the Broken Window Theory. I was just saying Detroit did a similar thing and spent oodles of money to turn vacant ground floors into bars and clubs during the Superbowl, yet it hasn't brought too much development.

Didn't Barack say "if you put lipstick on a pig, it's still a pig?" and I think Detroit did this for Superbowl XL? Then again, they did have the Hip Hop Major. Actually, we should be thankful that we don't get what you see in every vacant building in the burbs this time year. A Halloween store. That actually may not be a bad idea to throw one of these temperary stores in some of the downtown spots.

Last weekend started out great. I attended an event at the old Grand Rapids Art Museum, Activesite. The entire time I kept thinking "this is one of the greatest events I've been to in Grand Rapids." It just felt like being at an event in NYC or Chicago, and it's just a matter of time before it makes the national scene. Despite this event being on the same weekend the city falls in love with Pulaski Days, it appeared hugely successful. The very next day my wife and I are showing her nephew around Grand Rapids. He's a freshman at Grand Valley and has never been to Grand Rapids (he's from Cheboygan). We did the Polish hall circuit, fish ladder, Heritage Hill, etc., and by chance stumbled upon the Fireball Run event. I'm a little embarassed and borderline peeved there wasn't much attention given to this national event, especially given its altruistic nature. Raising awareness of missing children across the country. I recall a few articles in MLive earlier this year (May) about this event and its significance in choosing Grand Rapids as the final stop: http://blog.mlive.com/grpress/2008/05/fire...ontinental.html 6 months later there's one article about its stop in Grand Rapids, but that's hardly time to register on the event radar for most people...and it showed with the embarassingly small crowds downtown. As slow as downtown was for the 4th of July Money Mayweather event, this was slower. http://www.mlive.com/grpress/sports/index...._through_g.html Yes, it's cool Grand Rapids can get some national exposure with a downtown pillow fight, but how does something with national exposure and a fair amount of media attention barely register on our own radars?

Sounds like everyone was correct about this building http://blog.mlive.com/knapescorner/2008/10...ice_preven.html

Maybe this is mentioned elsewhere on the forum, but what's going on here? New development? I took this photo this morning.

For his next act he may want to rob the marble store because he seems to have lost his.

I think it's been 5+ years since Chedders shut down, maybe closer to 10. It had been scuttled for a couple years and torn down to make way for the Sam's Club gas station. If memory serves me correctly, it went in after Costco came into town and put in their own gas station.

I agree with much of Suydam's comments; although, I feel these business districts represent something quite different. One is a destination and the other a neighborhood. It's like visiting Chicago. You can either go to the big flagship stores on Michigan Avenue (essentially an open air mall with skyscrapers) and fight all the tourists looking up, or you can shop the exact same stores (minus the 5 other floors) in any of the neighborhoods (Lincoln Park, Wicker Park, Boystown, Bucktown, Wrigleyville, Lakeview, etc., have a more intimate overall shopping experience, and grab a drink or coffee afterward. There's also very few walk able retail areas downtown. And the areas that are walk able (Monroe) make it very inconvenient for vehicle traffic. Or on the flip side, the places excellent for vehicle traffic have been overrun with bars (Ionia). I counted one day all the drinking establishments from an area that covered Leonard - Cherry to the N/S and the Grand River - LaGrave E/W. Try it yourself, and you'll be astonished as you add the numbers of alcohol related spaces versus retail. Makes you wonder if we should be issuing more resort licenses downtown or putting more emphasis on retail or other forms of business.

Grand Coney on Michigan St. is open 24/7. Weekends, after the bars have closed, are usually packed. As these bar patrons shuffle out, tired from stuffing their faces of questionable quality food and coming down from their vodka redbull highs, the next wave usually comes in...the bar employees. This place would be my suggestion for sending any out of towners. Too bad there are no places like the Weiner Circle (Chicago) here.

If you're looking for modern/stylish furniture (reasonably priced) I would look at Stone's Throw / EQ3 on 1428 Plainfield Ave NE. And nowadays, everything is negotiable.

I don't mind sharing at all...and thank you for touching up the photo.

#1 GRCHS #2 Holland Home off Breton #3 Woodland Mall #4 Regency Apts & Jolly Roger #5 28th St just east of E Beltline #6 Reeds lake from the South Yup, that's all of them. I'll see what else I have in my collection and try to post them soon. Have a great weekend everyone. Paul

I thought this would be a fun little game heading into the weekend. I tried to have them up earlier but our internet was down for the afternoon. Landmark quiz. I think collectively there's not a spot in this city we couldn't name....street level. Can you name these spots from the air? #1) The only change to this photo: I removed the school lettering from the center of the football field. "> #2 "> #3 "> #4 "> #5 "> #6 an easy one ">