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Grandville Castle Apartments


mgreven

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12 minutes ago, GRDadof3 said:

People sure do have high expectations for Southwest Suburban Grand Rapids! lol. Have they looked at how trashy Rivertown Crossings is looking?  

I don't love it and I drive by it 2 - 3x a week, but I certainly don't think it's horrible. But the outrage at this is pure comedy. ;) Some people have even said they'd rather have the trailer park back. :rofl: #puregrandville

 

 

Why does the trailer park have to be the only other option? Why not a 15 story apartment tower with mixed use developments sprinkled in to actually make the area more attractive to live in? Go to the Detroit area and you see suburbs with such towers. We have the opportunity to do something large scale in the burbs and we make it a castle? 

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47 minutes ago, GRLaker said:

Why does the trailer park have to be the only other option? Why not a 15 story apartment tower with mixed use developments sprinkled in to actually make the area more attractive to live in? Go to the Detroit area and you see suburbs with such towers. We have the opportunity to do something large scale in the burbs and we make it a castle? 

Eh, I still love the thing even if the windows are a mess.  Compared to the trash that is going up on Michigan, this thing is a breath of fresh air for something of this size and scale.  It could have been another faceless square box, undoubtedly for less cost and a higher margin.  They're doing something different and unique, and my hat's off to them for it.  It's a piece of monumental scale architecture, and as far as such things go, it really ain't too bad.

 

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21 hours ago, GRDadof3 said:

The hatred for this project on Mlive's FB page is thick and saucy. :rofl:  I guess if I lived in the Grandville/Jenison area I might care more. The windows do look terrible, but to have custom made arched windows? That many of them? Hooooey!!

Nah.  The dirty little secret with a lot of arched windows is that they aren't really arched.  The frames are standard square frames with an arched opening cut into them on old single panes.  With modern double panes, you mount the square window unit in a square frame, and then use an applied extrusion or even wood to give the illusion of a round opening.  Given the number of identical windows in the project, this would have been easy to do.  It would also be easy to retrofit, since the windows open in.  All you need is a white vinyl extrusion that mounts in the arch, then glue it to the vinyl and maybe put two masonry screws into a pair of tabs molded into the extrusion for good measure.  Nominal cost, but the improvement to overall appearance would be significant.  

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9 hours ago, GRLaker said:

Why does the trailer park have to be the only other option? Why not a 15 story apartment tower with mixed use developments sprinkled in to actually make the area more attractive to live in? Go to the Detroit area and you see suburbs with such towers. WE have the opportunity to do something large scale in the burbs and WE make it a castle? 

I think the use of "we" in this case is a bit of a stretch. This project wasn't crowd-sourced, and isn't in the city of Grand Rapids. And I really doubt that mixed-use would work in this locale. To the East you have some of the lowest housing prices in the county, and probably the lowest household incomes, mixed with industrial uses. To the West is nothingness. South is downtown Grandville, which struggles to compete with Rivertown. North is industrial and more nothingness. Would an island of mixed-use work? Nail salons and check cashing stores? 

I'm not an expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I think this project is almost perfect as is. :) 

 

 

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19 hours ago, x99 said:

Compared to the trash that is going up on Michigan, this thing is a breath of fresh air for something of this size and scale.  It could have been another faceless square box, undoubtedly for less cost and a higher margin.  They're doing something different and unique, and my hat's off to them for it.  It's a piece of monumental scale architecture, and as far as such things go, it really ain't too bad.

 

Srsly?  LOL

I'll take a beige box with better finishings in a walkable neighborhood downtown over this disaster any day.  

 

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12 hours ago, GRDadof3 said:

I think the use of "we" in this case is a bit of a stretch. This project wasn't crowd-sourced, and isn't in the city of Grand Rapids. And I really doubt that mixed-use would work in this locale. To the East you have some of the lowest housing prices in the county, and probably the lowest household incomes, mixed with industrial uses. To the West is nothingness. South is downtown Grandville, which struggles to compete with Rivertown. North is industrial and more nothingness. Would an island of mixed-use work? Nail salons and check cashing stores? 

I'm not an expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I think this project is almost perfect as is. :) 

There were those that said the Arena wouldn't be a catalyst for revival in the Heartside either.  They said it was going to be a big waste of money.

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6 hours ago, scottythe1nonly said:

Srsly?  LOL

I'll take a beige box with better finishings in a walkable neighborhood downtown over this disaster any day.  

 

Sometimes you have to step out of your own personal vacuum/silo/echo chamber. Just because you want something, and maybe all of your friends want something, doesn't mean that it's what everyone wants, or even a majority wants. In fact, if you fancy yourself to be pretty cool, or cooler than the average Joe, there's a pretty good chance your tastes don't align with very many other people (ie not marketable). It's how hipster businesses fail, most of them. I'm guilty of this too. 

Plus add in the fact that these are going to be about 30- 40% cheaper than downtown apartments are running. My wife and I struggled with this 20+ years ago when we moved to GR. We wanted to live downtown or near downtown, but couldn't afford it. Instead, we slummed in suburban apartment complexes for 4 or 5 years and then built our first house with the money we saved. We couldn't walk to work or the grocery store but we sold that first home for a pretty fat profit 4 years later, and built a second home that we still live in.

Moral of the story: sometimes doing the hip and trendy thing is really bad for you economically. Sometimes you should live in a castle that overlooks an industrial park.

Now Joedowntown is going to give me a hard time for bragging. :) 

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5 hours ago, GRDadof3 said:

Now Joedowntown is going to give me a hard time for bragging. :) 

*IF* you see me post here, it will only be about development news / and only positive comments. This place has become too much like Salon 2.0, so I've decided I will be a lurker.

I do agree. It's not everyone's cup of tea (including mine) but I bet some people are ecstatic to be moving into a castle (can you imagine a young family with kids- it'd be like moving to Disney World). It's quite a sight coming down the expressway. I really hope in 20-30 years, it's a cool (not so) little landmark that people like to talk about. I think a lot of structures people adore today were weird and unorthodox when built.

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On 8/9/2017 at 8:40 PM, joeDowntown said:

*IF* you see me post here, it will only be about development news / and only positive comments. This place has become too much like Salon 2.0, so I've decided I will be a lurker.

I do agree. It's not everyone's cup of tea (including mine) but I bet some people are ecstatic to be moving into a castle (can you imagine a young family with kids- it'd be like moving to Disney World). It's quite a sight coming down the expressway. I really hope in 20-30 years, it's a cool (not so) little landmark that people like to talk about. I think a lot of structures people adore today were weird and unorthodox when built.

Grandville Castle Apartments - "The project that tore a community apart!" :lol:  We'll have more details at 11:00. 

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  • 3 weeks later...
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I couldn’t quite tell as I was driving by, but it looks like the windows are rectangular windows behind the rounded openings. I figure this saves a massive amount of money but it looks a little funny because you can see the white window trim except around the rounded top. 

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18 hours ago, Raildude's dad said:

I was at a presentation by Roger Lucas on the project a few weeks ago. He said he always wanted to build a castle. He pitched it to his partner who thought he was crazy so he went alone on the project. He served as his own construction manager assisted by his son and daughter on site. He is not a stranger to the construction business having built over 3000 apartment units in 30 years. He has built both the wood structure units and concrete structure units.

 

The foundation for the main structure is on 2700 geopiers. Calculated settlement was 1 inch. It has settled 1.25 inches.

 

The main structure was built using the Outinord forming system, a European system for large projects. They cast in place 27 forms a day –wall and floors cast together. It took 30,000 cubic yards of concrete. The concrete was pumped up until the pumps couldn’t pump any higher. Then the cranes took over bucketing the concrete the last few floors.. They started forming on July 29th and finished Dec 5th.

 

The “siding” is Superior Wall panels manufactured by Great Lakes Superior out of Hamilton MI. The panels are insulated. They are not colored to mimic the gray color of the castle in Germany. The windows are triple glazed with an r-40 value. They open for cleaning. Each unit has its own electric heat pump. The units are fire proof, pretty much sound proof and damage proof.

 

The blue roof area was initially to be empty. One day he inquired if they could put apartment units up there. The answer was yes. Their design / marketing team designed premium 2 story loft units for that area. The crenelations are decorative for the precast “gutter” to handle the runoff from the roof. The gutters will be easy to clean, they are big enough to walk in with chest high “railings”.

 

The low structure is the parking garage is precast concrete from Kerkstra.  Most units are “one car” but they have some units which are longer and so the tenant has a storage unit in the space as well. There is a covered parking spot for every bed in the complex.

 

It was an informative presentation. Our group hopes to get a tour once the elevators are up and running:)

 

That would actually be a cool tour.  Any chance of others tagging along?

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On 10/15/2017 at 2:30 PM, dadr said:

I couldn’t quite tell as I was driving by, but it looks like the windows are rectangular windows behind the rounded openings. I figure this saves a massive amount of money but it looks a little funny because you can see the white window trim except around the rounded top. 

They are.  I mentioned this before.  It's the most significant flaw on the entire project, and it's a major one.  I am still hoping they fix it by having a piece of trim crafted which can be glued or screwed in place from inside the building.  The trim piece should continue the white window surround over the top.  The way it looks now, at least to my eyes, is bad enough to seriously damage the aesthetics of the entire project.  It looks awful.

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^Chances are by this point what you see is what you are going to get. Although with this project they seem to be making decisions mod-construction so maybe we shouldn't discout that yet.

Putting rectangular windows behind rounded openings has been done even historically. Even in the late 19th and 20th century a standard double hung or casement window would eb placed behind an arched opening. The difference there would be that the piece of glass in the top sash would also be arched and the rest of the space would be infilled with wood so that the arch could be seen as continuous from the outside. While I definitely see the benefits to sticking with a rectangular window, both from the cost of the unit, cost of finishing the interior drywall, and simple functionality of being able to put blinds in the window, this trick of having the arch cheated onto the window unit could have been done here as well.

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  • 2 weeks later...
9 hours ago, jthrasher said:

It seems like construction has been at a stand still lately.  I’ve only driven by it a few time this month but nothing appears to have changed in a while.  Still only one blue turret roof.   Is this project already a bust?

Yes, I'm sure it's a bust. :rofl: I go by it twice a week and they're always working on it. 

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1 hour ago, GRDadof3 said:

Yes, I'm sure it's a bust. :rofl: I go by it twice a week and they're always working on it. 

I drive by this 'project' twice a day and it does look like major construction has slowed down but there's a lot of work going on in the lower floors/areas. I mean, it still looks atrocious but whatevs. 

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