RegalTDP

I don't think it's being used anymore. The Marine company that was assigned there moved to Battle Creek.

I think @arcturus has a point about the perception issue... It's not good to see this happen in broad daylight with SWAT teams sweeping the nearby buildings. Of course that will bring the news vans out to cover it. All that said, this is a terrible & tragic news story and I hope the victim's friends & family get justice. However, combatting that perception always going to be an issue... I live in LA and work in Hollywood (the actual neighborhood) and every time there's a police siren blaring somewhere we get breathless news commentary of "wHaT dOeS tHiS mEaN fOr HoLlYwOoD??" and it's pretty stale. There will always be bad news stories coming out of Downtown, because it's the most interesting part of the city. FWIW new crime data for 2023 in California is showing that in LA, SF, & San Jose violent crime, which surged in 2020, has gone down back to pre-2020 levels. I wonder if we will see anything similar for Michigan.

If you look at the site plan, there are truck docks just to the right of the parking lot that will be concealed by a screen wall. So it seems the parking lot will be separate from all that. I really don't get the hand-wringing about the new design; I don't know what people are seeing in the old design that's missing now. All the tall buildings in the old designs were clearly speculative. The surface parking lot is a small footprint compared to the whole site, and they've minimized its frontage toward both the street and the river. I definitely share the concern that surrounding lots will be converted to parking but having some on-site parking, if anything, helps alleviate that. One question I have: Will there still be a footbridge across the river? The new rendering seems to show it on the bottom but it's not in the site plan. YAASSS I love that about how GR is growing. It truly is exceptional compared to how other mid-size cities are developing. Out here in Southern California you have cities like Bakersfield, Fresno, and Riverside with populations that are growing at insane rates, but their downtowns are still basically situated around a single pair of cross-streets. Those cities are boring AF... and no cool neighborhoods like Eastown or Midtown or Roosevelt Park outside of downtown either.

This is great. Can't wait to see the project in question that precipitated this. WOOD's map on the changes is handy. But they should keep raising it. High rises along the river should be unlimited IMO.

It has been quieter here without him. If we keep posting pictures of cranes, he might come back!

Yes, this. THIS was my point. I don't care if the image is ICONIC, I just want it to be GOOD. None** of those cities are recognizable to most people from their images alone. TBH only a few cities in the world actually are. But all those other cities had nice drone shots or streetscapes, and we had a boring house. So that house is in Meijer Gardens? No one would know that. It's not even a GOOD pic of Meijer Gardens. They got that picture from Getty Images. Getty Images has tons of much, much better stock photos of GR. If you google "Getty Images Grand Rapids" you will be flooded with them. It takes less than a second. How they landed on this house is a mystery. **Besides St. Louis. But they have an arch, so it's not really fair.

While we're griping, what's with the pic they used for GR in the Travel + Leisure article? All the other cities on the list get great drone shots or streetscapes, and GR gets a picture of Miss Havisham's overgrown garden. I don't even know where the heck that house is. I know listicle writers never put much effort into this, but there are so many great licensable pics of GR and you can find them in two seconds.

I was thinking the same… If I had contributed money for this, I’d want it back.

As a counterpoint, here's a list of 20 restaurants that opened in GR & Muskegon this year from MLive: https://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/2022/12/20-restaurants-in-the-grand-rapids-and-muskegon-areas-that-opened-in-2022.html LOL, #20 is Muskegon's first Chipotle It's a good thing for chains to be expanding there though.

How can you be suspicious with a byline like "user"? You don't trust user's reporting? This whole article is literally copy & pasted from MLive. I don't know how you came across this site, but it seems to just be a blog that reposts news from other organizations.

Commune is the home goods store that's at the corner of Lake & Robinson. Looks like they're moving to a new location. Here's a post they put up on Instagram about the move. Thanks for the pics, good update

I wonder how marshy it was back then? Does anyone remember? The flat landscape there now is artificial from the clay cap they made to seal it off. I think it was swampland before that, probably considered unusable for development. And people used to like dumping garbage in water, we assumed it washed away and no one would see it again. Unbuildable land + adjacent to river + downstream from settlement = perfect dumping site. Genius!

The sky's the limit when you've got an AAA ball team!

Speaking of unsexy education, GRCC is an asset to the region and will be a key component of this. It won’t bring in companies like a research university will but it will adapt when they come and train the workforce. We saw this with Medical Mile, their nursing and medical programs are first-rate. Not every city invests in their community colleges but GR is lucky that it does.

They have to change that name. Rapid City? Like, as in the town in South Dakota? Why would you put a different city’s name in your team name? Why wouldn’t you name it after Grand Rapids? You’re supposed to represent YOUR city, don’t you get how this works? I’m deadly serious - that name is a hard fail. Why not call it “Big Rapids FC”? “Big” and “Grand” mean the same thing, right?

Here:

I saw the headline out here and thought “please don’t be west MI… please don’t be west MI… dammit.”

That was a napalm bomb.

Really neat to see the work they are doing to restore this old building! Here's a Google Street view of this site in 2020. From the pictures in the article, it would appear Last Mile is taking the stall on the left side of the white building. Here's Street view from February 2022, apparently after they started working on the building. Here are pics from the article that show the interior. Looks like they are opening up the boarded-up storefront and replacing it with windows. I bet it looks great when it's done.

All of Ottawa County is in Grand Rapids-Kentwood MSA. The CSA adds Muskegon and Allegan counties. So, your friend lived in the MSA if they were on the Ottawa side of Holland, and CSA if they were on the Allegan side.

Maybe they're trying to say "We want Royal Oak but without the D-bags"

I'm sorry to keep beating this horse but this is just not a true statement. You may have a different definition of "direct connection," but I would define it as a direct limited-access road from the expressway to the airport entrance without interaction with a surface street & local traffic - I mean, isn't that what you're pining for at GRR? Well, that does not exist at LAX. The "tunnel" you're talking about is CA-1/Sepulveda Blvd, which is a major surface road. It's over a 1/2 mile from the entrance to the airport, which is not my idea of a direct connection. Plus it's backed up with local traffic between 7:00am and 9:00pm, so unless you're going in outside those hours, you're better off using alternate exits. And if you're coming in from the north (like I have to) you're not even using the 105 anyway. The closest exit from the 405 puts you on La Cienaga Blvd, which is over a mile from the airport entrance.

LAX and San Diego don’t directly connect to freeways. Not that anyone should model their airport after the horror that is LAX I wouldn’t mind a direct connection to I-96, I just don’t think it’s worth the cost of tunneling over to it. It’s already pretty easy to get to GRR from the freeway.

It actually does rain sometimes in California, in Winter and Spring. Having lived in both SD and LA, I agree SD's climate is better. Less smoggy and the ocean breeze carries farther. Downtown SD > Downtown LA too. California water is cold b/c ocean currents circulate clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere, so Pacific currents hit the West Coast from the Arctic, whereas the Atlantic currents come up to the East Coast from the Tropics. But, I don't think the Pacific is any colder than Lake Michigan. I'm going to re-up my old postings in the "GR's Best Assets" thread to reiterate what it's like to come back to Michigan after living out west. I have to admit since posting this though, I find myself getting less and less tolerant of cold weather like I used to. I think it's an age thing.

My wife is from Mesa and visiting her family in June was a terrible experience weather-wise. Her family is great, but the heat was oppressive. Opening the door and stepping outside is like exposing yourself to sniper fire. You dash to the car, slam the door and crank the AC full blast. You relax while you drive to the mall. Then, once you park, it's a mad dash to get inside and into that sweet, sweet AC. I've really tried to like Phoenix. I believe every city is unique and has something to offer but I've really struggled with this town. There is no aesthetic beauty to the landscape whatsoever. It's just brown, rocky and dusty. It doesn't have the sweeping desert sands or dramatic vistas like you would imagine when you think of the Southwest. The desert there is more like a vacant lot that goes on forever. The downtown areas - even Scottsdale, which is supposed to be the swanky suburb - don't evoke much personality. And it's not like you can casually walk around downtown anyway - you're always dashing to get inside. Other parts of Arizona, like Flagstaff, Prescott and Sedona are much prettier. Here endeth the rant.