JimiThing

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ICYMI: They are indeed starting on this additional building. https://mibiz.com/sections/real-estate-development/switch-begins-construction-on-second-data-center-at-gaines-township-pyramid-campus I also found this tidbit on my way down the rabbit hole: https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2017/05/25/switch-plans-gigantic-atlanta-data-center-campus "The future data center in Atlanta will be to Switch’s Grand Rapids, Michigan, site what its Las Vegas campus is to the one in Reno, Nevada, meaning it will be one of two East Coast locations that are far enough from each other to enable a resilient, redundant application topology across two geographically separated sites for its customers."

Edit: supplement to Joe's post above. Muskegon received $9.3M in grants from the Michigan Strategic Fund which will be allocated to a couple downtown housing projects. https://archive.ph/f5yZd from Crain's Detroit. 880 First St, which is the skeleton building that has been waiting for some love a while now, is getting a new looks plus a five-story addition next door. 80-90 "housing" units + amenities: 351 Western (aka Lakeview Lofts). The second phase of the apartment project on Western. 80-90 apartment units + ground floor commercial. The image below is the first phase which is already completed. The second phase will be to it's left (you may have seen a certain cellphone video shot through a window in the news recently):

Is anyone on here familiar with the Walker Planning Commission, and what their goals for the Standale corridor are? Personally I'm disappointed (but not surprised) this and the other residential projects in the area are set to become more car-oriented subdivisions. With LMD being the primary East-West corridor through the west side of town and out to GVSU, Standale seems like it would be a perfect spot for transit-oriented development along the Laker Line. So I'm curious, is this sort project in line with what the city and (realistic) residents of Walker want? What are they looking for out there? Would a TOD get a ton of pushback? Are these low-density suburban developments a compromise for folks who really just don't want to see any development at all? Is there any room for the community to accept a more medium-density TOD if it could potentially help with traffic on LMD and the sprawl that's going to keep encroaching into the rural areas to the west?

Some interesting tidbits in the PC's agenda packet http://grandrapidscitymi.iqm2.com/Citizens/FileOpen.aspx?Type=1&ID=4800&Inline=True It starts on page 228. Sounds like the developer also has plans next door (to the west on Fulton): "It is also important to note that the applicant also owns the (4) parcels directly west on Fulton & Gold and has plans for multifamily housing development. The buildings are similar in design and will harmoniously work together when fully constructed. When completed, and as planned per the ASP, the 616 Fulton building at 5- stories, will cascade west with this development at 4-stories, at the Fulton & Gold at 3-stories."

They're currently working on the floor almost right in front of the webcam: https://app.truelook.com/?u=sr1576233892#tl_live Edit: These are some pretty narrow office floors.

I'm cynical by nature, but setting that aside I still find this very concerning. Monroe North is perfectly situated to be a cool little urban riverfront district where people actually want to live and hang out, but with the recent history we've seen in W. MI (St Mary's taking an also perfectly positioned neighorhood and turning it into a parking lot), I can only think this is what Spectrum will eventfully end up with as well. Is there a fallacy for this type of thinking? Now that there's a real possibility that half of their Board of Directors (and in the future, possibly most of them) will be from the Detroit area, is there any real reason to think Spectrum will have any desire to show some creativity and intention with their real estate in Monroe North? I personally think the initial renderings for this first building are rather drab (seriously, grey brick?), what makes us think they're going to put any more effort into "liner buildings", if that even happens? Do cities ever buy large parcels and subdivide them up as if it was a new neighborhood 100 years ago? Would that even be feasible? Buy these bigger parcels and let various developers come in and build a bunch of smaller multi-unit buildings to give the streetscape some diversity? Obviously they aren't all vacant lots, but it can't be impossible to allow the neighborhood to develop an interesting streetscape organically (with guidelines, of course) instead of having a handful of developers build block-long buildings that, as joeDowntown said earlier, can make or break an entire neighborhood. Split up some of these larger lots that we can, and have developers like the ones in Belknap who are tearing down scarce affordable housing come down here and build their condos and flats. I think a few half blocks of these mixed in with some larger scale mixed use wouldn't be awful. I really hope the city isn't letting Spectrum hijack this neighborhood though, otherwise their precious riverfront they've been spending so much time on is going to end up looking like this:

As of around noon today, the bullet hole and subsequent spider cracking is still prominently displayed in the front window of Embassy Suites. If you can see the street level, you can see the shattered glass. This can't be good for business (I use that term in the context of the entire city). Do we have a shortage of plywood to board it up right now too? What's the deal, it's been nine days.

Article in MiBiz on Sunday. Not a whole lot of new info but a couple of notes: -One level parking deck below the building (this seems to disagree with the site plans posted above but makes sense given what appears to be a garage door on the eastern end) -Wheeler is pursuing brownfield incentives -They will also be hosting an informational/feedback meeting for the neighborhood on Monday the 28th in the parking lot behind 1409 Robinson. https://mibiz.com/sections/real-estate-development/wheeler-development-plans-39-apartment-units-ground-floor-retail-in-eastown

While we're at it...

A temporary dog park just opened in front of the new building on Market (where the Planet Fitness is planned). Looked pretty busy driving by around 6pm today. Not expecting this to be around for a grand opening of a major amphitheater across the street, but I couldn't help but chuckle (and then squirm) at the thought of a bunch of drunk/etc concert-goers converging on a puppy park before a Phish concert. Interested to see how this plays out though. A dog park may be a good way to really build a sense of community that has been somewhat lacking for downtown area residents. There are few easier ways to meet strangers that you wouldn't otherwise talk to. Has anyone here been down there yet?

I didn't find this posted anywhere on here, but it looks like 616 Lofts sold the Kregel Building in 2019 to Wealthy & Charles LLC, which lists its only registered agent as Kurt Hassberger at Rockford Construction. https://deedsselfservice.kentcountymi.gov/web/search/DOCSEARCH138S1 https://cofs.lara.state.mi.us/CorpWeb/CorpSearch/CorpSummary.aspx?ID=802326716&SEARCH_TYPE=3&CanReturn=True https://rockfordconstruction.com/people/kurt-hassberger Also, not sure if this is much of a secret, but I know that someone very, very high up at Rockford lives a couple of blocks from here.

I think when you're looking at a minor league team's fan base (at least for one affiliated with a major league team), there are basically two types of fans: 1) The fan who genuinely cares about the team winning , or at least enjoys going to the games to watch the sport and hang out. 2) The die hard fan of the major league team using it to develop players. I'm not a particularly big sports fan, but if I was a big Pistons fans I'd probably be interested in going to a few Drive games here and there to watch younger, potentially future Pistons players develop. Ben Wallace was undrafted and rose to be the foundation of their championship run back in '04. You never know what future stars could be playing in some of these games. See: Whitecaps. The Pistons can barely fill Little Ceasars Arena though, I'm not sure how they also fill Wayne State's arena on top of that with a minor league team. Edit: just did a Google image search for Wayne State's "arena." Forget my last sentence.