REIMAGINE PLAINFIELD

[grandrollerz]

Saw this on LinkedIn this morning.  It's Plainfield Twp so I started a new thread apart from Creston Neighborhood.  The reimagining starts at the Twp boundary so my least favorite part of Plainfield (Denny's to Fred's Pizza) is out of scope sadly.

Reimagine Plainfield (plainfieldmi.org) for the exec summary--- PlainfieldTownship_Final 2021 05 05.pdf (revize.com) for the details. I feel like they should incorporate the "North Kent" name in here somewhere :-) It's a long read but it looks pretty good.  Going to read more over the weekend.

[cstonesparty]

27 minutes ago, grandrollerz said:

I feel like they should incorporate the "North Kent" name in here somewhere :-) 

What about embracing the Northview identity?

[joeDowntown]

It's definitely ambitious. Plainfield is so bizarre to me. It's a very highly traveled road, yet businesses come and go all the time and there's a very high vacancy rate among commercial buildings. I think the shallow lots are part of the problem (only allowing for small, outdated strip malls). The sea of parking at Lowe's ("North Kent Mall") and Big Lots/Harbor Freight seem like prime spots for development. 

I hope they're able to come up with and execute a cohesive plan. It has way too much potential to be as under utilized as it is now.

Joe

[GRDadof3]

On 5/27/2022 at 10:21 AM, joeDowntown said:

It's definitely ambitious. Plainfield is so bizarre to me. It's a very highly traveled road, yet businesses come and go all the time and there's a very high vacancy rate among commercial buildings. I think the shallow lots are part of the problem (only allowing for small, outdated strip malls). The sea of parking at Lowe's ("North Kent Mall") and Big Lots/Harbor Freight seem like prime spots for development. 

I hope they're able to come up with and execute a cohesive plan. It has way too much potential to be as under utilized as it is now.

Joe

I think the chances of getting all of those commercial business owners to come together and create anything like this plan is slim to none. Sorry to be a pessimist. All of the tenants in North Kent "mall" would essentially have to close up these businesses for good, to accommodate multi years of redeveloping the site. So the North Kent Mall owners would receive zero rent for 2 - 3 years and pay $100's of millions to build all of this out? Same with all of the businesses in that area on Plainfield? 

Nope. 

[Khorasaurus1]

8 hours ago, GRDadof3 said:

I think the chances of getting all of those commercial business owners to come together and create anything like this plan is slim to none. Sorry to be a pessimist. All of the tenants in North Kent "mall" would essentially have to close up these businesses for good, to accommodate multi years of redeveloping the site. So the North Kent Mall owners would receive zero rent for 2 - 3 years and pay $100's of millions to build all of this out? Same with all of the businesses in that area on Plainfield? 

Nope. 

I think for the smaller sites, the idea is that a developer will see value in demolishing an aging one-story commercial building and replacing it with a brand new multi-story mixed use building. We've seen it closer to the core on Wealthy, Michigan, Bridge, and even Plainfield itself, so why not further out? Certainly there's no reason to prohibit a developer from doing that via zoning. May as well allow it and let the market decide. 

For North Kent Mall, I agree it would be a difficult and expensive process. Not impossible, but it would need significant financial and logistical support from the Township and buy-in from (or buy-out of) the existing business owners.

[GRDadof3]

1 hour ago, Khorasaurus1 said:

I think for the smaller sites, the idea is that a developer will see value in demolishing an aging one-story commercial building and replacing it with a brand new multi-story mixed use building. We've seen it closer to the core on Wealthy, Michigan, Bridge, and even Plainfield itself, so why not further out? Certainly there's no reason to prohibit a developer from doing that via zoning. May as well allow it and let the market decide. 

 

Yes, I can probably see that happening on a very small scale. There have already been some aging commercial buildings knocked down recently on Plainfield near Jupiter. One was replaced by a car wash. The other few are still vacant. 

Even the Reimagine Studio 28 site has resulted in just the apartment buildings being built. I haven't heard of any of the other grandiose ideas coming to fruition. Most of these large commercial/retail strip malls that are still full or near full are owned by companies that aren't even located anywhere near Grand Rapids. They could give a rats ass about creating a walkable neighborhood. That wasn't the case for the urban sites that have been turned into mixed use developments.  They've been done by developers local to Grand Rapids. 

[joeDowntown]

Oh yeah, it’s totally a mystery project type vision with cute brick buildings, walkable streets, dense commercial centers. If they could go so far as making it a viable, if predictable, commercial strip, I’d be happy. It’s such a wasteland (and wasted opportunity) right now. I don’t know who’s foot the bill to even make that happen though. I think there’d have to be some serious demolition and reconfiguring to make it viable again. 

Joe

[Khorasaurus1]

20 hours ago, GRDadof3 said:

Yes, I can probably see that happening on a very small scale. There have already been some aging commercial buildings knocked down recently on Plainfield near Jupiter. One was replaced by a car wash. The other few are still vacant. 

Even the Reimagine Studio 28 site has resulted in just the apartment buildings being built. I haven't heard of any of the other grandiose ideas coming to fruition. Most of these large commercial/retail strip malls that are still full or near full are owned by companies that aren't even located anywhere near Grand Rapids. They could give a rats ass about creating a walkable neighborhood. That wasn't the case for the urban sites that have been turned into mixed use developments.  They've been done by developers local to Grand Rapids. 

It's definitely true that holding an older strip mall, making minimal investments, and filling it with whatever will take the space is profitable. But with the housing crunch (and nearly every major suburban housing development becoming a knock-down, drag-out fight with neighbors), some of those out of town owners may start getting purchase offers they can't pass up. Redeveloping a commercial strip site isn't the ideal way to develop housing, but if the entitlements process is one quiet meeting approving your by-right development, as opposed to 12-18 months of high stakes and controversial PUD negotiations, that starts to change the calculus,