Spectrum - Monroe North Campus

[RiversideGR]

1 hour ago, MJLO said:

God I hope that's a typo and not BHSH's new name.  That sounds like the name for a failed smoothie chain 

 

[cstonesparty]

55 minutes ago, RiversideGR said:

 

 

[Pattmost20]

Terrible name. The opposite of rolling off the tongue.

[WMrapids]

On 10/12/2022 at 9:16 AM, RiversideGR said:

 

First thing I thought of…

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/26/us/politics/betsy-devos-neurocore-brain-performance-ads.html

[grandrollerz]

Aren’t Devos backers of both Corelife and Neurocore?

the timing is interesting for me as I just resigned from Spectrum health after 27yrs. No more insider information from me!

i did see the NOT chosen names from uspto, i think they made the better choice  

 

 

[Khorasaurus1]

2 hours ago, grandrollerz said:

Aren’t Devos backers of both Corelife and Neurocore?

the timing is interesting for me as I just resigned from Spectrum health after 27yrs. No more insider information from me!

i did see the NOT chosen names from uspto, i think they made the better choice  

 

 

Honestly, "Spectrum-Beaumont" would have been a fine name. Or maybe they should just kept "Butterworth" back in the 90s. 

[joeDowntown]

At the end of the day, who cares? We'll all adapt and call it Corewell, similar to when they changed the name to Spectrum ... I know one thing for sure, it's a good time to be a sign company.

Does anyone know when they'll start adding glass to the Monroe building? It seemed like they were getting pretty close to closing in the non-glass sections. I'd think it'll be sooner than later so they can get moving on interior work through the winter?

Joe

[Cookin_peacocks]

1 hour ago, joeDowntown said:

At the end of the day, who cares? We'll all adapt and call it Corewell, similar to when they changed the name to Spectrum ... I know one thing for sure, it's a good time to be a sign company.

Does anyone know when they'll start adding glass to the Monroe building? It seemed like they were getting pretty close to closing in the non-glass sections. I'd think it'll be sooner than later so they can get moving on interior work through the winter?

Joe

I moved here in 2012. What did Spectrum used to be called?

[Khorasaurus1]

11 minutes ago, Cookin_peacocks said:

I moved here in 2012. What did Spectrum used to be called?

Butterworth and Blodgett were two completely separate entities. They merged in the 90s and took the name "Spectrum."

They actually tried to rename the hospitals "Spectrum Downtown" and "Spectrum East" but that didn't stick and the old names came back under the Spectrum umbrella.

[thebeerqueer]

14 minutes ago, Cookin_peacocks said:

I moved here in 2012. What did Spectrum used to be called?

Spectrum downtown was previously Butterworth Hospital and Spectrum Blodgett was Blodgett Hospital. 

[Cookin_peacocks]

7 minutes ago, thebeerqueer said:

Spectrum downtown was previously Butterworth Hospital and Spectrum Blodgett was Blodgett Hospital. 

So wait, was the healthcare SYSTEM called Butterworth? Or does this predate a system?

[grandrollerz]

Both Blodgett Memorial Medical Center and Butterworth Regional Hospital Network were a loose collection of alliances premerger, i came to the merger through a subsidiary of BMMC via Nurses Unlimited, inc…..then moved to Butterworth’s Visiting Nurse Services (both homecare companies). 
 

the other big player in town was Michigan Medical PC, mmpc a collection of physicians that became spectrum health medical group, now Corewell Health Medical Group east

[wingbert]

Corewell sounds like a good name for a well drilling company.  When I first received the update I thought it was typo for Carewell.

[joeDowntown]

They are looking to turn 975 Ottawa (used to be an athletic club) into a Self Storage facility. I know Self Storage is needed, but that is a great old building in an area that is going through a lot of changes. Seems like there are about 1,000 better uses than a self-storage facility that basically locks that site up as a fort knox style abandoned building. 

I think the rendering with six people in front of it is a bit of an exaggeration  Terrible re-use of a building if you ask me.

Joe

 

[RiversideGR]

2 hours ago, joeDowntown said:

They are looking to turn 975 Ottawa (used to be an athletic club) into a Self Storage facility. I know Self Storage is needed, but that is a great old building in an area that is going through a lot of changes. Seems like there are about 1,000 better uses than a self-storage facility that basically locks that site up as a fort knox style abandoned building. 

I couldn't agree more. Storage units don't belong in such a prime location.

[joeDowntown]

22 minutes ago, RiversideGR said:

I couldn't agree more. Storage units don't belong in such a prime location.

Especially when so much of the remaining developable area has been bought by Spectrum. I feel like some of the moves they are making in Monroe north are going to stagnate the neighborhood a bit. This is one of the few buildings in the area that isn't locked down or developed. So much potential!

[Cookin_peacocks]

Terrible idea. Couldn't they put one elsewhere nearby?

 

Can people voice their opinion against this? North Monroe has the potential to be a very cool, walkable neighborhood 

[GR_Urbanist]

Ottawa Ave in N. Monroe is mostly just surface parking lots and little else that would make anyone want to walk through there. The space around this building is desolate and deserted on a good day. One side is a massive parking lot, the other side of the street is the sheer blank wall of an industrial facility. The other neighbor is a ratty concreate box from the 70s.

There is little reason for the city to deny this use. It will fit right into the look of everything there that isn't fronting N. Monroe. 

 

It will take decades for it to remotely resemble the vision we all had for what this part of town should have been heading towards by now. With Spectrum Health's (or whatever they call themselves now) block of parking up the street, you can pretty much write the area off for the foreseeable future past what it is now, which is too bad.

[GRLaker]

Can we talk about the fact that Cornhole Health ripped off the API Healthcare logo?

[joeDowntown]

2 hours ago, GR_Urbanist said:

Ottawa Ave in N. Monroe is mostly just surface parking lots and little else that would make anyone want to walk through there. The space around this building is desolate and deserted on a good day. One side is a massive parking lot, the other side of the street is the sheer blank wall of an industrial facility. The other neighbor is a ratty concreate box from the 70s.

There is little reason for the city to deny this use. It will fit right into the look of everything there that isn't fronting N. Monroe. 

 

It will take decades for it to remotely resemble the vision we all had for what this part of town should have been heading towards by now. With Spectrum Health's (or whatever they call themselves now) block of parking up the street, you can pretty much write the area off for the foreseeable future past what it is now, which is too bad.

So you are saying the zoning board should throw up its hands and say “whatever”, lock that piece of property into a good 25-30 years use as a storage facility? I would hope good urban planning would think 1,5,10 years out. 

 There is a ridiculous amount of investment coming to the area, from the rapids and parks along the river to the realignment of division / ottawa and the potential park on the hill. add that to the investments of the last ten years and it would seem like a shame to say “screw it, take another building out of development and let’s build storage units”. 

seems very short sighted to me. 

Joe

[GR_Urbanist]

16 minutes ago, joeDowntown said:

So you are saying the zoning board should throw up its hands and say “whatever”, lock that piece of property into a good 25-30 years use as a storage facility? I would hope good urban planning would think 1,5,10 years out. 

 There is a ridiculous amount of investment coming to the area, from the rapids and parks along the river to the realignment of division / ottawa and the potential park on the hill. add that to the investments of the last ten years and it would seem like a shame to say “screw it, take another building out of development and let’s build storage units”. 

seems very short sighted to me. 

Joe

It isnt a matter if I think they should, it is based on the reality of where this business wants to be, and that the zoning board is not in the business of denying a legit business a chance to contribute to the tax base because the business isnt "cool" to a still very far off vision of what we see this area could be. All the investment that exist in North Monroe currently stubbornly hugs Monroe, and a very thin portion of N. Monroe at that. Almost nothing significant extends to the streets to the east. The park and rapids are just on-paper proposals, and cant really come into consideration until someone actually turns dirt...or water.

With hundreds of acers of parking lots, still in use industrial sites, and lots of otherwise shabby mediocre buildings from the 70s still dominating the area, it would be seen as petty on their part to sink this business's request. There is a legal component to all of this that can come back to bite them if they are seen as unjustly denying them this request too.

 

It's massively disappointing to me as I thought 18 years ago N. Monroe would have been a tight area of mixed-use from the highway to Leonard by now. But it is what it is.

[whitemice]

15 hours ago, joeDowntown said:

I feel like some of the moves they are making in Monroe north are going to stagnate the neighborhood

Agree.  The Spectrum CTI is a stunningly bad project for Monroe North;  its progression eliminated what little faith I had left in our Mayor & her Planning Dept.  It is a parking bomb detonated in a center of a revitalizing urban area.

8 hours ago, GR_Urbanist said:

he zoning board is not in the business of denying a legit business a chance to contribute to the tax base because the business isnt "cool"

In the end,  I agree.  This will pass, and it should. If Spectrum's ~900 parking spaces was a legit land use, then this is a legit land use.  

It reminds me of the car wash up by Fuller & Leonard; perhaps it doesn't fit some Master Plan [which The City is clearly not willing to fight for].  But it is impossible to stand in that spot, look around, and not say: "Yeah, that fits the existing neighborhood character of this location."

8 hours ago, GR_Urbanist said:

All the investment that exist in North Monroe currently stubbornly hugs Monroe, and a very thin portion of N. Monroe at that

Yep, the backside of Monroe North still feels like it did 20 years ago, with the small exception of Eastern Kille Distillery which is on its way out.

8 hours ago, GR_Urbanist said:

The park and rapids are just on-paper proposals, and cant really come into consideration until someone actually turns dirt...or water.

"It ain't a thing until the first backhoe arrives" -- unknown

8 hours ago, GR_Urbanist said:

I thought 18 years ago N. Monroe would have been a tight area of mixed-use from the highway to Leonard

It has done much better than I expected.  The City so far has really followed through with the river bank parks, etc... and The City rarely follows through with things.  However, their unwillingness to institute parking maximums and other next steps I feel has drawn a ceilings on the potential of these neighborhoods.  Then salt with world circumstances....

Self storage is lucrative, so the building will likely be very well maintained, which is not the case today.

[cstonesparty]

2 hours ago, whitemice said:

Self storage is lucrative, so the building will likely be very well maintained, which is not the case today.

One of the original titans of self-storage, who died a billionaire from that business, said “I saw a method of holding prime land with income" about that business model.  Hopefully the MySpace Storage folks are seeing this as a real estate play and when a deal makes sense that building will see a better use.

[joeDowntown]

I guess I whole heartedly disagree. Seems like a defeatist attitude. If the business needs a zoning change due to the type of use, the city can (and should) IMHO say no. I thought that was what planning and zoning boards did, ensure that redevelopment fits the plan. 

The comment about the rapids restoration or park not being valid since ground hasn’t been turned is garbage.  Millions of dollars get spent before shovels hit dirt, we DO have a master plan, and truly great cities are planned and curated. Mediocre cities throw up their hands and say do whatever you want. 

I’m frustrated that the city doesn’t get tougher. Other than opposing transient alcohol sales, no one seemed overly concerned about putting a Kum N Go on a busy gateway to downtown GR.

I personally think the city needs to take a harder stance and tell developers if you want to build shit developments, value engineer the heck out of plans, knock stories off your development, just don’t build and come back when you’ve got better plans. Space downtown is finite. Build it right, or let’s wait until someone will. 

Joe

[whitemice]

2 hours ago, joeDowntown said:

I personally think the city needs to take a harder stance

Agree.  Yet it is apparent [even obvious!], and confirmed in some conversations, that this is not going to happen under the current regime.  Municipal elections in 2024!  I mean, we've have Vision Zero adopted and die on the vine - what happened to the attached policy changes?  nothing -  then Housing NOW, and the unwillingness to even adopt a policy change to end new surface parking lots downtown [proposed & canned].

2 hours ago, joeDowntown said:

Space downtown is finite.

Yep.  There is plenty of places to build crap.

OTOH,  I do see self-storage as 50/50 a revenue business and a real-estate holding strategy.  Those types of structures are cheap [relatively speaking].