Diamond Place at the Proos Site

[Allison Slater]

On 8/10/2018 at 11:53 AM, joeDowntown said:

I think it’s great that two local companies stepped it up, took a risk, and are giving a lot of options that have been missing from downtown and surrounding areas  

I assume Bridge Street Market will have a pharmacy, which will be a huge improvement for downtown. 

Way to go local companies!

Joe

I'm assuming it might not considering there's already a Meijer Pharmacy in the Spectrum Butterworth building.

[54equalsunity]

7 hours ago, Floyd_Z said:

Technically there is a pharmacy already downtown in the Spectrum campus.

Actually, the pharmacy that gets most of the business for downtown is the Wege Pharmacy at Mercy (like 800-1000 scripts/day, which is considered high volume in the pharmacy world). The Meijer inside Butterworth does a lot of discharge scripts. Not much outpatient stuff, to my knowledge. 

[HavingAhoot]

Wasn't this supposed to be a pharmacy or is one? Which I thought was odd because the walgreens down the street is a pharmacy. The fuller/michigan location isn't exactly downtown but this location is getting close. The last one that was in the downtown area I could think of was the pharm next to the fulton street party store near GVSU DT campus.  

[54equalsunity]

18 minutes ago, HavingAhoot said:

Wasn't this supposed to be a pharmacy or is one? Which I thought was odd because the walgreens down the street is a pharmacy. The fuller/michigan location isn't exactly downtown but this location is getting close. The last one that was in the downtown area I could think of was the pharm next to the fulton street party store near GVSU DT campus.  

That location is a specialty pharmacy and an MTM (Medication Therapy Management) center, meaning that they handle very expensive medications and do a lot of medication reviews over the phone. I do not believe that they operate as a typical retail establishment. 

[GRDadof3]

On 8/11/2018 at 10:12 PM, 54equalsunity said:

Actually, the pharmacy that gets most of the business for downtown is the Wege Pharmacy at Mercy (like 800-1000 scripts/day, which is considered high volume in the pharmacy world). The Meijer inside Butterworth does a lot of discharge scripts. Not much outpatient stuff, to my knowledge. 

Thanks for dousing our dreams with reality.

[Allison Slater]

I don't know about the Wege pharmacy, but the Meijer pharmacy in Spectrum does operate retail as well. I've picked up some cough drops there. I want to say there's 4-5 aisles of health products.

[54equalsunity]

On 8/14/2018 at 6:11 AM, tSlater said:

I don't know about the Wege pharmacy, but the Meijer pharmacy in Spectrum does operate retail as well. I've picked up some cough drops there. I want to say there's 4-5 aisles of health products.

Both Wege and Meijer-Spectrum can be classified as outpatient/retail/community pharmacies. Meijer-Spectrum looks like it has a decent OTC selection. The Wege pharmacy has a very barebones selection. While you could take a script to either, the difference is that Meijer-Spectrum is less accessible due to a lack of parking. Wege has on-street parking and a ramp behind the building, as it is adjacent to the hospital and home to multiple other Mercy Health services. For the mostly auto-dependent population of GR, this difference in accessibility makes a huge impact on choice. Why would anyone try to find parking near Butterworth when they can simply get their script at one of the many parking and drive-thru equipped pharmacies around the metro area? I think that before we see a pharmacy that is truly downtown we'll need a grocery store, or at least a Walgreens/CVS/Rite Aid, as people tend to travel to go see a doctor anyway at a location supported by their preference or insurance plan. Ideally, I think of somewhere like South State St. between E. Washington and N. University in Ann Arbor. There is an urban-format CVS that has done so well (apparently) that Walgreens put in an urban-format store right down the street! That area of the city gets a ton of foot traffic from students, though, so I don't know for GR who will be what in the chicken-or-egg scenario of foot traffic drawing business or a business drawing foot traffic.

[Allison Slater]

One of those two, I think the Walgreens, is two-storey as well, which really makes our retail scene in general in GR feel incredibly inadequate.

[54equalsunity]

On 8/13/2018 at 12:02 PM, GRDadof3 said:

Thanks for dousing our dreams with reality.

I am mistaken. I have a friend who works at that Walgreens doing MTM, and he has informed me that one CAN fill a script in a typical retail fashion...but the store does not like to advertise that as a service. They prefer to focus on mail order, specialty, and MTM.

But hey, if you're in the area and want to walk up there to fill a script, it can be done! 

[grandrollerz]

While you could take a script to either, the difference is that Meijer-Spectrum is less accessible due to a lack of parking

Not a lot, but technically there are 2, maybe 3 Meijer pharmacy spots reserved with signage on them in the main SH drive/drop off.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

[HavingAhoot]

I walked around the Diamond Place over the weekend and it look better than I expected, especially GFS! The sushi/ Ramen was underway and I talked to a guy who said people will be moving into apartments today. I tried to get some photos of GFS but they were reflective and didn't turn out great. The grocery store isn't Bridge St. Market but its bigger and nicer than I initially expected. 

 

[jonrapley]

According to their website the Gordon Food Service store is opening up October 1st. They already have all the signage up.

[HavingAhoot]

Itttttss  Open!!   (early)    https://www.facebook.com/Gordon-Food-Service-Store-2230376163860727/?__tn__=%2Cdk*F*F-R&eid=ARBzUNJV4jl1HyaXnrVNY-VvOPxUfro6gtmPhmhm_q6q0ccMdc380JKeshLWeCSXFzbBOYR3SUAZfItB&tn-str=k*F

[kwl]

On 9/27/2018 at 12:39 PM, HavingAhoot said:

Itttttss  Open!!   (early)    https://www.facebook.com/Gordon-Food-Service-Store-2230376163860727/?__tn__=%2Cdk*F*F-R&eid=ARBzUNJV4jl1HyaXnrVNY-VvOPxUfro6gtmPhmhm_q6q0ccMdc380JKeshLWeCSXFzbBOYR3SUAZfItB&tn-str=k*F

Based on the photos I've seen, they seem to have nailed the concept. Better than Bridge Street Market IMO. 

[jonrapley]

Went in today to have a look around, I was very impressed with the selection. I feel this store is catered towards the whole neighborhood. 

[whitemice]

Loving this place!  With Bridge St. Market, GFS, Riley's Ace Hardware, Grand Butcher, and Nantucket my household needs are 95% covered.   This corridor, now with the RAPID#19 . . . I got home from work, at 5, changed clothes, went out to run my errands, visited multiple places, loaded down, home by 7:15.    Sweet!!!  This is the promise of the urban life delivered.

[WMrapids]

Well...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-02-13/why-america-s-new-apartment-buildings-all-look-the-same

[Raildude's dad]

I had noticed all the wood myself and an acquaintance who works for a General Contractor told me wood is quite a bit cheaper than steel right now. The article lays it out and makes sense.

[GRDadof3]

6 hours ago, WMrapids said:

Well...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-02-13/why-america-s-new-apartment-buildings-all-look-the-same

At certain times in the past when I was more of a wannabe-developer I was told by several architects to keep the project under a certain height, I believe it was 5 stories. Anything taller required steel which was WAY more expensive. 

The Studio Park apartments portion are 5 stories and stick-frame built.

I think the article overblows the fire risk though. How often do you hear about fires at stick frame apartment buildings (fires that wouldn't have happened anyway no matter what the construction method was)? I know there were a couple of apartment complex fires last year and neither were complete losses, and they were both old complexes built 30 - 40 years ago. 

Definitely an interesting article though.