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The USPS property on Michigan at the Grand River will remain, preventing any sort of positive development in that spot. Grand Rapids will get a fully "dark grocery store" - think Witmark for groceries. As Meijer, Spartan-Nash and GFS have big footprints in the area, it would be easy to run a test store in the metro to see how this might roll out further.

Jose Babushka's is back. Someone wins a partial prize from the prediction thread.

Anyone have a guess to where the USPS might be relocated if that's even a possibility? I assuming the USPS is still under a new construction, movement or closing moratorium too. If it does hit the market, the plan to relocate has to come first.

I had one... OK a couple... as well and they were pretty awesome. The Mexican food place is called Taco El Cunado. I would agree with the other posts, the sticker shock factor is pretty large. I really hope that the vendors can moderate the prices quite a bit to remain competitive with the "I can go somewhere else and get this for 1/2 price" factor. I was pretty amazed at the prices the Making Thyme Kitchen wanted for some of their simple to-go dishes as well. I fully understand the convenience factor, but a chicken breast with pine nuts and raisins was $9.95 for a single serving? Ow. I think the place will be very successful once the two other restaurants and brew pub arrive, and will certainly be a destination, especially when you get both the outside and inside running at the same time.

Our little river made the WSJ today - Real Rapids in Grand Rapids? - Restoring Michigan City's Namesake Waterway Viewed as Boon for Downtown GRAND RAPIDS, Mich.—The fast-moving water that inspired this city's name disappeared more than a century ago. Now, a group of white-water enthusiasts, environmental engineers and civic leaders are attempting to turn back time and put the frothy rapids back into the Grand River. More at the link.

...but how was the parking?

Each state in the USA does their own thing - in Michigan, the DTMB auctions off the TSA haul.

I just wish that The Parking Spot people would come into the market, but we don't have enough traffic to support their operation. That long-term rate is just plain painful when you get back from a 5-day trip ($65.00). I could have parked in the nether-regions lot, but coming back from Florida to a non-snow buried car is a good thing.

My vote is that it has something to do with Southwest and how they would fully replace Airtran at GRR... since SW owns them anyway.

I caught just a portion of the report, had a hard time understanding why they decided to operate that way. Wasn't a few years back when they were having financial difficulties anyway? Why on earth would you not just remain fully open and modify your hours if you had a special event? Maybe even rope off the special event area or something. It's all pretty possible to do with a little planning.

Thanks. I finally had time to (and something other than a tablet computer) to read the report on. In the sections on 'constraints', FTC&H describe a few points that may parallel the Boardman Dam project and introduce unknown delays - mostly dealing with governmental approvals. The US Fish and Wildlife Service approvals and environmental impact study were something that the Boardman project ran into as well, and those might add an indeterminate amount of time. I'd love to see the river developed into a place where you can do more than fish, I do wonder about the many layers of governmental approvals that might delay this thing, and lessen the stakeholders excitment and interest levels.

(I didn't read the report)... but I wonder how long it would take to do the environmental impact study and all the other approvals? Would it take as long to accomplish as the Traverse City Boardman Dam removal?

As a foodie, I'd love to have Trader Joe's or something like a Wegman's appear as a pip on the RADAR scope for GR. One can only hope.

Nice looking concept. Recently I was in Philadelphia and they have a long-standing farmers and artisans market located right next to the convention center. That place was packed every day that I was there. That led me to think that something like this would be great if it was adjacent to DeVos Place (via a short walk). Almost everyone at the convention center in Philly walked over to get some great food and buy local items during lunch and after sessions.

And another new restaurant appears... Bagger Dave's at Kraft and 28th. I've never heard of them before today, anyone else know about them? Diversified Restaurant Holdings, Inc., the owner/operator and franchisor of the unique, full-service, ultra-casual restaurant and bar Bagger Dave’s Legendary Burger Tavern and a leading franchisee for Buffalo Wild Wings, announced they have signed an agreement to purchase the land and building of a former Big Boy restaurant located at 2817 Kraft Avenue Cascade Township, MI. The property is on the southwest corner of Kraft Ave and 28th St. SE across the street from a Crowne Plaza Hotel, a Meijer and in close proximity to other popular retail outlets. The restaurant plans to open at the end of 2011. Link to original story

And this from a 'news' organization that can't earn enough revenue to stay afloat and was sold 2 years ago for $1 to a Hi-Fi company founder. I agree with MJLO. Some dufus looked at a bunch of data and tried to extrapolate information from it, without having any context.

The Grand Rapids Press has a feature running today and for the next week called Young Entrepreneurs. Thursday's item will feature Danny Beckett of Speria. I'm not all that into schadenfreude, but I'm wondering how much of the present reality will be included. Hopefully the story will be instructive and capture some good advice on what to and not to do when you launch a start-up.

I agree - I should have clarified that I was referring to a few of the comments on the story itself.

In my Wall St Journal this morning arrived a copy of WSJ magazine with Art Prize as a featured article, entitled "Critical Mass" It's nice to see that GR is getting a bit more attention outside of the region. There are a couple of statements in there about opening up art competitions brings out lots of bad art. Yep and I've been to enough art museums that had that same bad art. What's not so nice is the stereotyping by a couple of the art-snob-elite types that think GR is a monolithic entity; 600 churches, no mowing the lawn on Sunday, holier-than-thous. I've lived here my entire life, and perhaps that was the way things were when I was in grade school, but 20+ years later, GR is just like any other city I visit - people are people and have the attitude of do your thing, and I'll do mine.

I wish GR was set up in such a way to support what I find everytime I visit Washington DC. You can take the Metro from DC Reagan to just about anywhere you need to go (hotel, conference center, etc). I know we've beaten the topic to death here - but I'd like to see a loop from GRR to DT in some configuration. Looking a bit to the future, I think we could see GR becoming the Mayo or Cleveland Clinic of Michigan and may be a destination - just like the other two are. Having an easy way to get from GRR to DT would be great - but I'm not holding my breath.

@JR123 - Normally, I would welcome a newcomer to Urban Planet and their contributions to the discourse. It took just your first post to demonstrate just the opposite of what all of us hope would occur on the forum. As you advise that none of us know anything about anything and that one person spelled a name wrong, please enlighten us. That's why we're here; to learn. Oh, and by the way - you missed a letter in the word 'involved' in your post. Could happen to anyone, just thought you might like to know.

I can't resist interjecting the infamous Turtle Fence video at this point just for comedy relief. YouTube Turtle Fence

So I visited the new D&W this morning at about 6:50AM and the parking lot was already about 1/2 full. Lots of people picking up the cheap ferns ($7.99). I was there for the sale ($1.99) on 12pks of High Fructose Corn Syrup + Water (a.k.a. Coca-Cola). The store manager was at the door greeting each patron and handing out maps of the store, and all the corporate big-wigs were there hanging around the Starbucks. The produce section is pretty nice, compared to the Meijer across the street. They have a pretty nice deli/ready to heat and eat food section, like their other stores too. I'm pretty picky about my produce, and D&W doesn't disappoint (so far). They didn't have as many checkouts open as I would have expected on a Grand Opening, but I was in and out in reasonable time. Only thing I missed was a place to put your carts when you were done - there are no cart corral's in the lot, so I dutifully pushed my cart back to the entrance instead of leaving it to roll into someones Lexus I drove by again later in the afternoon, (11:30'ish) and the place was totally packed, which is to be expected.

Yep - got my full page sale ad in the mailbox today - Sunday at 6AM. We also received a DVD with a video telling us all about D&W enclosed in a brochure. They sure want to let us know they are there.

Looks like an Aldi store might be going into Celebration Village. We won't have a shortage on where to get some groceries on the corner... but too bad it's not a Trader Joe's instead.