Wealthy Street Mega Thread

[Cookin_peacocks]

51 minutes ago, wingbert said:

Serious deja vu vibes here.  Someone check for a reset in the matrix.

We were knights that say nee. 

 

I really miss the trivia Wednesdays

[GRDadof3]

On 4/19/2022 at 9:08 AM, Cookin_peacocks said:

We used to frequent Elk pretty regularly. One day, they fired all the normal staff. To beer was mediocre, but we really went for the staff. They were AWESOME. once they canned all them and replaced them, my friends and I decided to go elsewhere.

Why'd they fire all of the normal staff? Was it right around the time they closed the Comstock Park location? Did they move people around? 

[GRyan]

On 4/21/2022 at 10:13 AM, GRDadof3 said:

Why'd they fire all of the normal staff? Was it right around the time they closed the Comstock Park location? Did they move people around? 

This was back in about 2018 or 2019. I don't know the whole story but I believe it was after the co-founders sold to a new owner who wasn't a fan of the management at the Wealthy St location and cleared house. I knew a couple of the bartenders from that time and they all were let go instead of moved to the Comstock Park location and they had a pretty bad reaction to how it went down

[Cookin_peacocks]

3 hours ago, GRyan said:

This was back in about 2018 or 2019. I don't know the whole story but I believe it was after the co-founders sold to a new owner who wasn't a fan of the management at the Wealthy St location and cleared house. I knew a couple of the bartenders from that time and they all were let go instead of moved to the Comstock Park location and they had a pretty bad reaction to how it went down

I often wonder where they went. 

[GRDadof3]

300 Wealthy has apparently sold and rumor has it that it will be proposed condos/residential.  (the corner right at the roundabout)

[walker]

6 hours ago, GRDadof3 said:

300 Wealthy has apparently sold and rumor has it that it will be proposed condos/residential.  (the corner right at the roundabout)

WARNING: another old mailman story coming up:

When I was a mailman this was the site of a recently abandoned Sunoco gas station on a route I frequently delivered starting in 1967 just after the 1967 riot.  The regular mail carriers in the neighborhood told me the station operator closed down and got rid of the gas in the tanks just a few days before the  riot because he had inside info that it was coming.   Considering the times,  I suspect he may have decided it was a good time to think about employment elsewhere, but I think the riot was a little too spontaneous for anyone to have any specific inside information. 

This was a rough neighborhood then along this part of Wealthy and the adjoining streets. particularly along Prospect and Lafayette and Cass on both sides of Wealthy including blocks that no longer exist that were urban-renewaled for the expansion of St. Mary's and for the new Mary Free Bed Hospital next door.  When I walk through the area on my walks these days, I'm always amused to see nicely dressed people coming out of houses where heroin addicts used to live. 

Here is a Google Street view photo of the former gas station building from 2007 before it was torn down.  In those good old days, the dry cleaning business in the photo used to be in a building across the street:

             

Edited May 26, 2022 by walker

[joeDowntown]

At some point, someone on UP had suggested moving one of the houses along Lafayette (?) to make a larger lot and more infill. I always liked that plan and thought it made a lot of sense. 

I'm just glad St. Mary's didn't buy this lot for more parking...

Joe

 

[GRDadof3]

2 hours ago, joeDowntown said:

At some point, someone on UP had suggested moving one of the houses along Lafayette (?) to make a larger lot and more infill. I always liked that plan and thought it made a lot of sense. 

I'm just glad St. Mary's didn't buy this lot for more parking...

Joe

 

It's a long-standing Wealthy Street business owner too who is the rumored buyer, so I'm looking forward to seeing what they want to do. I have no idea if they are incorporating neighboring properties. I actually talked to ICCF back years ago when they owned it but they did not want to part with it. 

[walker]

On 7/7/2020 at 5:58 PM, walker said:

 

It took a while but it looks like terra firma found a tenant.  A bulk food store.  I wish them good luck:

WZZM: bulk-goods-store-opens-in-grand-rapids-looks-to-reduce-plastic  

After posting my long ago story about the abandoned gas station today I thought it would be a good day to walk down Wealthy Street.  Sad to report that there is a sign on the bulk food store at 620 Wealthy St. SE that says May 28th is their last day.

[GRDadof3]

10 hours ago, joeDowntown said:

A few additional pieces of the state budget. $11M to the GR public museum to improve the riverfront, $10M to Mary Free Bed in what seems like an undiscussed new hospital concept? And the $30M for the amphitheater project. 

https://www.wzzm13.com/article/news/local/new-hospital-amphitheater-headline-big-additions-to-grand-rapids-from-approved-state-budget/69-53cf5b34-2567-407c-adee-65303f3fc074

Maybe it's Mary Free Bed that's looking to build a children's hospital, and not St Mary's. (as was hinted on here a few weeks ago)

[Guest]

On 7/2/2022 at 8:41 AM, GRDadof3 said:

Maybe it's Mary Free Bed that's looking to build a children's hospital, and not St Mary's. (as was hinted on here a few weeks ago)

Yup I think I may have misspoke.  I'll try to find some renderings.  It's nothing too big, but it will be less surface lots.

[Guest]

t's still in the conceptual phase.  $37m, SE corner of Wealthy/Jefferson.

[GRDadof3]

1 hour ago, Floyd_Z said:

t's still in the conceptual phase.  $37m, SE corner of Wealthy/Jefferson.

Wow, that's kind of cool looking. 

If I'm looking at it correctly, the first view is facing directly East up Wealthy (with a new skywalk connecting MFB to this building).

[civitas]

3 hours ago, GRDadof3 said:

Wow, that's kind of cool looking. 

If I'm looking at it correctly, the first view is facing directly East up Wealthy (with a new skywalk connecting MFB to this building).

 Wasn’t the parking south of the existing building a placeholder for future building along the right-of-way?    It would be good to see this in context with a master development concept for the whole block/campus, including the future building north of Wealthy.  

[Guest]

6 hours ago, GRDadof3 said:

Wow, that's kind of cool looking. 

If I'm looking at it correctly, the first view is facing directly East up Wealthy (with a new skywalk connecting MFB to this building).

Yes, correct, that is the exact location.  I like the look of the building too, I hope it stays something similar to what it is now.  That area of Wealthy could really use some density.  It will be interesting to see if anyone does anything with those five or so properties that were sold to the east.  Although it might be difficult to get any significant development with it being in HH.

[GRDadof3]

I moved the Mary Free Bed expansion thread out of the amphitheater thread, fyi. 

[ZAP!]

On 7/5/2022 at 11:37 AM, GRDadof3 said:

I moved the Mary Free Bed expansion thread out of the amphitheater thread, fyi. 

Didn't this thread used to be a lot longer? Like a lot longer? Did an oopsie happen in this move?

[joeDowntown]

Indeed. Unfortunately, The merging function is weird on this forum so I could see where it would happen. I did it to the beer thread (hence, beer 2.0)

[walker]

Just to see if it is hidden somewhere (and possibly may be recoverable) I just Googled "Wealthy Street Mega Thread" and up popped the whole Wealthy Thread entitled "Proposed Downtown Amphitheater," so it is still out there on the interweb at the moment:

What came back from Google

Not an internet tech, so I have no idea how this might be straightened out.

And I just brought it up in here, and the Wealthy thread is still here but under the Amphitheater heading.

So upon some further investigation, the first 98 pages of the original Wealthy thread are now under the Amphitheater thread.  The posts from April 18 and beyond for the Wealthy thread are here actually in the Wealthy thread.  And I think all the Amphitheater posts are in the Amphitheater thread except they might be intermixed with some of the later Wealthy posts contained in the Amphitheater thread starting around page 98.  Sometimes it's hard to tell where a post was meant to be originally.

Hope we can keep from losing the old posts in the Wealthy thread, there's a lot of history of our times there.  

Edited July 6, 2022 by walker
more info

[GR_Urbanist]

I'm actually pleasantly surprised by St. Mary even proposing a children's hospital and not a new parking lot. Not expecting it at all.  I'm also intrigued by its location at such a far point south.

I rather like it, and that's a rare thing for me to say when it comes to that institution.

 

Now if they pull it off, and it looks like that? That is another question.

 

Edit: And the Mega Thread is now economy size! 

Edited July 6, 2022 by GR_Urbanist

[joeDowntown]

3 hours ago, GR_Urbanist said:

I'm actually pleasantly surprised by St. Mary even proposing a children's hospital and not a new parking lot. Not expecting it at all.  I'm also intrigued by its location at such a far point south.

I rather like it, and that's a rare thing for me to say when it comes to that institution.

 

Now if they pull it off, and it looks like that? That is another question.

 

Edit: And the Mega Thread is now economy size! 

It’s now on the dollar menu. LOL. I’ll contact @Neo see if we can pull the historic info back. Merge fail.

Joe

[Neo]

10 hours ago, joeDowntown said:

It’s now on the dollar menu. LOL. I’ll contact @Neo see if we can pull the historic info back. Merge fail.

Joe

Merging is non-reversible, but you could always split it again. 

[GRDadof3]

10 hours ago, joeDowntown said:

It’s now on the dollar menu. LOL. I’ll contact @Neo see if we can pull the historic info back. Merge fail.

Joe

That was my fault. The rest of the wealthy street mega thread got merged with the amphitheater thread. And I don't have an un-do button. 

[ZAP!]

On 7/7/2022 at 8:12 AM, GRDadof3 said:

That was my fault. The rest of the wealthy street mega thread got merged with the amphitheater thread. And I don't have an un-do button. 

The Amphitheater thread wasn't too long comparatively, was it? You could probably isolate its posts into a new thread, then re-merge all of the remaining Wealthy posts into this thread.

[GRDadof3]

12 hours ago, ZAP! said:

The Amphitheater thread wasn't too long comparatively, was it? You could probably isolate its posts into a new thread, then re-merge all of the remaining Wealthy posts into this thread.

I find it humorous that you think that's an easy thing to do.   If I have an hour and a half to spare this weekend, I'll see if I can do it. Keep in mind this is an Invision board that even with updates, dates back to 2000's.