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Hinman project - new 13 story hotel at 10 Ionia


GRDadof3

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1 hour ago, mpchicago said:

I feel like there was a drive thru their too.  

I know there was a drive thru at the "Old Kent" bank parking lot north of their headquarters at Vandenberg Center.  

Maybe it was just a parking attendant booth and the Michigan National Bank sign made me think it was a drive up teller. 

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5 minutes ago, GRDadof3 said:

Maybe it was just a parking attendant booth and the Michigan National Bank sign made me think it was a drive up teller. 

I don't remember a drive up teller (it may have been gone by the time I started obsessing about downtown), but they did have a drive up ATM in the not so distant past. I think they got rid of it, but there was definitely an area where you could drive through.

Joe

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9 hours ago, joeDowntown said:

I don't remember a drive up teller (it may have been gone by the time I started obsessing about downtown), but they did have a drive up ATM in the not so distant past. I think they got rid of it, but there was definitely an area where you could drive through.

Joe

I see RegalTDP found my shorter reply from awhile ago.  Here's a longer reply I started before he replied:  

It had been a drive-in window originally but I think you are right that later it had been closed when banking regulations loosened up.  The way I understand it, when Michigan National Bank was first chartered in the depression it was made up of five or six banks.  They were all more or less failing banks and I think the the idea was to save them by making one huge bank.  But the banking rules were such in Michigan at the time that a national bank could not have a branch in a city that already had a bank headquartered within it.  So this new bank could not have any new branches.  Conversely local banks such as Old Kent couldn't have branches further than twenty-five miles from their headquarters or in cities that had the headquarters of another bank .   Back then people thought big banks were evil so they tried to limit them, of course we now know that isn't true.  So when drive-in banking started up in the fifties, Michigan National couldn't have a drive-in because it would be considered a branch.  So to get around the regulation they built a tunnel underneath Ionia to connect the main bank with the new parking-ramp/drive-in bank.  When banking regulations loosened and they were allowed to branch they probably didn't need the parking ramp bank anymore. 

The Stoddard family that owned Michigan National had their own ways to block local banks from branching too.  For example before the City of Wyoming was incorporated, Old Kent opened a branch inside Rogers Plaza that turned out to be inadequate and didn't have a drive-in.  When the City of Wyoming was incorporated, the Stoddard's created a national bank headquartered in Wyoming called something like First National Bank of Wyoming.  Now that there was a bank in Wyoming, none of the other banks were allowed any additional branches other than what they already had.  But Old Kent In order to get around this played the same game as Michigan National.  They built a new branch with a drive-in in the Rogers Plaza parking lot and connected it to the space they leased inside the mall with a tunnel.  When it was completed and the new branch was operational, they closed the part of the bank inside the mall.  I think there was a lot of this stuff going on back then to circumvent the regulations by all the banks, not just Michigan National.  The Stoddard family owned or controlled several banks.  Bank holding companies were against the law back then but their holdings were all in the family and not part of a holding corporation.                

Edited by walker
to fix the usual typos
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  • 1 month later...

Buried in last week's Parking Commission agenda, CWD re-upped their option agreement on this little parcel next door to their office at 22 Ottawa. It only required a $20,000 deposit for another year, but apparently they're still looking at doing something here? I put this in this thread because I had a hard time finding the discussion on that building they were talking about here. 

 

22 Ottawa CWD.JPG 

 

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5 hours ago, GRDadof3 said:

Buried in last week's Parking Commission agenda, CWD re-upped their option agreement on this little parcel next door to their office at 22 Ottawa. It only required a $20,000 deposit for another year, but apparently they're still looking at doing something here? I put this in this thread because I had a hard time finding the discussion on that building they were talking about here. 

I think this is the thread you couldn't find:

development-proposals-for-fulton-ionia-surface-lot

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8 hours ago, GRDadof3 said:

Buried in last week's Parking Commission agenda, CWD re-upped their option agreement on this little parcel next door to their office at 22 Ottawa. It only required a $20,000 deposit for another year, but apparently they're still looking at doing something here? I put this in this thread because I had a hard time finding the discussion on that building they were talking about here. 

 

22 Ottawa CWD.JPG 

 

Doesn't this come up every year about this time? I could have sworn that last year or so they were on their last "chance" to option this lot, but honestly it isn't like I'd actually be able to remember something like this. I would love to see something great go there...

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19 hours ago, GVSUChris said:

Doesn't this come up every year about this time? I could have sworn that last year or so they were on their last "chance" to option this lot, but honestly it isn't like I'd actually be able to remember something like this. I would love to see something great go there...

Yes, the option agreement comes up every year at this time, which costs $20,000/year for CWD to extend it. The Parking Commission said that no one else has shown interest in the lot so they give CWD extensions. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

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