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The future of Grand Rapids


NorthCoast

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I thought about this for a while

some things that have kind of bothered me is the city limits, I think there should be some land trades and anexations with surrounding townsips and cities to better represent the housing and building character of each community. One area especially is the SW side should be larger with some area that is now in Wyoming that should be in GR also northview area should be anexed and there shold be some land trades with Kentwood, this would represent the cities better and boost the GR population well over 200k

other things i would do...

-create a "hispanic-town" distric on the SW side where spanish speaking businesses area allready prevelent also maybe a pol(ish)-town on the west side and asian-town on the far south division

-the DT needs at least one 400+ footer and maybe even a 500' someday and they need to be placed in the center of the skyline not out at the edges to at least bring the hight up to par with simular cities.

build a mixed use tower (40 stories or more) were the parking lot next to fridays sits now
thats where I was thinking, replace that ugly huntington bank building and surface lot

-buried power lines DT is a very good idea, look at milwaukee

-better schools are a must, they are loosing too many students to charters and suburban schools

-better transporation infastructure, wider roads more boulavards more exits on I-96 and M6, better access and more direct flights at GRR

-more suburban sprall control in the surounding TS

-need to connect with GVSU even more, which needs to be D1 in sports to draw attention to the school and area.

-expand VA arena to be on par with simular cities and GVSU could play some sports there

-The true metro area should be defined as Kent county NW Allagan and Eastern Ottawa counties so the population is more like 700k, but for maketing purposes keep the "Michigans west coast" thing

-another idea I heard a fews years ago was dredging the Grand river up to DT GR, that would be really fun to ride boats all the way DT.

I have more ideas but im tired of typing :wacko:

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Here is my list...taken from what has already been posted and given my angle:

-A total renovation to both sides of the river creating a boardwalk that lights up at night(like in San Antonio). Construct 4+ story commercial/residential buildings that face the river on the eastern bank.

-Restore City Hall to its original glory

-Continue to sell land on the west side of town to GVSU so it can expand upon its downtown campus. A lot of the older houses and businesses could be renovated for student living or college-town like retailers. Also continue the influx of out of town college programs such as MSU, Western, Ferris State, etc.

-Bring back the Interurban. Run 4 main lines out of the city in every direction. North to Comstock Park, east to Reeds Lake, south into Kentwood, and west into Grandville/Jenison.

-Bury all power lines

-Make the town completely wireless by installing stations on existing outdoor structures like light post, traffic lights, etc.

-"...tear down the post office, 5/3, GR press, federal bldg and the state of MI building. Replace them with buildings that aren't so dang ugly..."

-Eliminate any Ellis Parking lots(or any other for that manner) that aren't more than two stories

-Bury the highways except for 196 where it crosses the Grand

-Invest heavily in a total revamping of the GRPS school system

-Attract Grand Rapids based companies downtown for office space

-Create an inner city mall located within various buildings connected by skywalks(see Indianapolis' Circle Center)

-Build a downtown Grand Rapids Meijer(and make it the flagship store)

-Invest in improvements in the entire metro area. Strong suburbs make an even stronger city.

Thats all I got right now...

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...replace that ugly huntington bank building and surface lot

-need to connect with GVSU even more, which needs to be D1 in sports to draw attention to the school and area.

-expand VA arena to be on par with simular cities and GVSU could play some sports there

-The true metro area should be defined as Kent county NW Allagan and Eastern Ottawa counties so the population is more like 700k, but for maketing purposes keep the "Michigans west coast" thing

I just wanted to comment on these three ideas

#1 GVSU is going to have to grow at an enormous clip to get to D1-A status (They need twice the amount of Students they have now, and they would need to hit that many times quicker then normal population growth.

#2 The Calvin and Hope college game already draws a TON of people to VA, and the Arena already is above par with many cities that are GR's size, but I would like to see the "Blank wall with a TV on it" be filled in with seats (Bringing capacity to 15K).

#3 The other problem with that is the cities of wyoming, Walker, etc. signed agreements to not anex land area to GR, thus stunting GR's growth. It would take a LOT of intra-city legislation, but I do hope that it would happen in the next 20 years.

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Many great ideas here everyone.

Excellent, superb thought on the "West side of the river" district. If I may, just make sure that the amphitheatre has an orientation that allows a view of downtown while you listen to the music. What a great area that would be to live!

Cool, we haven't done this in a while:

- Create an entire new neighborhood "district" on the West side of the River, North of I-196 along Front Street all the way up to Leonard, complete with open air markets, a school, entertainment venues, an amphitheater overlooking the river, a riverfront greenbelt with wide sidewalks, and a lot of housing options.

- Mixed use housing development along State Street East of Jefferson

- Mid-rise mixed use housing development along Michigan in the Medical Mile area

You're right mpchicago. It all starts with the schools...make them first class and EVERYTHING else WOULD follow. The Raleigh/Durham-suburban school district collaboration has shown how it works!

Good Schools. Make GRPS competitive with suburban districts like EGR, Forest Hills and Rockford. To do this would have so many positive effects including an increase in population, an increase in property values and an increased tax base. Everything else would follow.

Some of my own additions: Use native wildflowers in the median of 131 at the 96 & Alpine interchange as a welcome to Grand Rapids. It's already a striking view of downtown (and will get better with all the downtown construction) but imagine with a wash of color between the north & southbound lanes. Get the landscape genius from GR who did the entry to Meijer Gardens (what's his name?)

How about the city of GR getting into the beer business. Use the steam plant downtown to brew our own version of Anchor Steam, create a beer garden, and use the profits to benefit the school system?

Let me add to GR8scott's idea about dredging the Grand River to Grand Haven... then create a commuter ferry that takes Grand Rapidians from downtown GR to downtown Grand Haven and the beach in the summer.

And one more that GRDadof3 mentioned a long time ago...somebody needs to build on the surface lot at the Fulton, Lewis, and Ionia triangle. We could have our very own Grand Rapids version of the Flatiron Building. With all the religous organizations based in our area, isn't there one interested in being based downtown and the obvious symbolism of the "Trinity Building"?

Sorry for the length, I got momentarily inspired. :rolleyes:

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Here's another idea: Take each parking ramp in town and make the top floor a park overlooking the city, with grass, shrubs, maybe trees in planters. How about dog walking parks? Hardly any of them are filled to the top anyway, especially in the winter :D

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This would be such a quick boost for downtown, a much quicker fix than the organic growth that is currently happening. Not that what is currently happening is bad. :thumbsup:

Think of the lineup of corporate office users that would help boost downtown:

Meijer

Steelcase

Herman Miller

Haworth

GFS

Spartan Stores

Wolverine World Wide

Perrigo

Zondervan Publishing

URS Corp.

Bissell

Earth Tech

Fishbeck, Thompson, Carr & Huber

Foremost Insurance

Gainey Transportation

Grand Valley Health Plan

Independent Bank

Priority Health

Universal Forest Products

USF Holland

X-Rite

That's quite a lineup. Land a few of these companies, and watch the vacancy rate drop, need for services increase, and clout from having bigger tenants increase.

Funny you should mention this because I work for Independent Bank. I can tell you for a fact that they will not move their HQ to gr because they started out in Ionia. However, I could also disagree to this because we are seeming to be running out of room with all of the major growth we've had lately.

There was rumors going around that our operations centers (where I work at in Belding) will move to GR because we're getting new departments with all this new technology we have to adhere to.

Also, the structure of that bank is to thrive in smaller cities not bigger ones. But on the flip side - we bought out a bank in detroit last year, and we are planning to put more branches on the south side of GR and work our way down 131 and then the lakeshore. They are opening one in Standale around xmas and east lansing this year.

So who knows if we will move down there or not :huh:

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Blueradon, How many people does Independent Bank employ at its HQ? Do they have a lot of floor space used for their offices? It seems that these are the types of business that GR should be going after. The suburbs don't seem to have a problem enticing businesses to relocate out of GR, GR should do the same.

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Blueradon, How many people does Independent Bank employ at its HQ? Do they have a lot of floor space used for their offices? It seems that these are the types of business that GR should be going after. The suburbs don't seem to have a problem enticing businesses to relocate out of GR, GR should do the same.

Well here's the scoop of how this kinda works for us...

Our headquarters (ceo's and what nots) are in two buildings in downtown ionia. Ionia is trying to revitalize their whole downtown and make it "alive" so to speak.

Anyways, we have our Independent Bank branch on one buliding and then a second floor for some of the corporate offices, etc. Across the street is what we call the "Johnson Building" which is 3 floors. So in these two buildings we have the CEO offices, Mortgage Servicing, Consumer Servicing, Commercial Loans, Investments, Accounting, HR, etc etc etc

I don't work in that building so I'm not too sure off the top of my head how many ppl work in those buildings...but we have about 6-7 pages of extensions so I'd say at least 100-200 tops.

We also have 2 operation centers (where we process the work, call center, atm departments, loss prevention, fraud, etc). The Main bigger ops center is in Belding (where I work and I'd say there is about 60-70 ppl in a tiny 2 floor building...it is very crowded), and another in bay city, mi.

It was rumored when we were going to reside a branch in the blue cross blue shield building on monroe center that the operations center from belding would occupy a couple floors, but I guess the deal never went through (and a lot of ppl presently working here would quit their jobs because they hate gr).

I on the other hand would have LOVED to work there because I love GR and I think it's a wonderful city to be in. But for now I'll stay in podunk belding :rofl:

Then another rumor is going about that we will move to the new standale office we will build on lake mi drive, but that has already been squashed as not true.

I also heard through the grapevine that Macatawa Bank is thinking about moving all their corp offices to GR so they can expand their company.

It would seem like a smart investment to move into a big city and become an impact, but some people just do not see it that way unfortunately.

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Tier the height of buildings near the river at a maxiumum of three stories, gaining height to whatever further away from the river. Gives a human scale for a riverwalk, a valley-like ambiance rather than a canyon plus nobody gets screwed out of a view further back from the river proper.

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Good Schools. Make GRPS competitive with suburban districts like EGR, Forest Hills and Rockford. To do this would have so many positive effects including an increase in population, an increase in property values and an increased tax base. Everything else would follow.

I concur, solving the budgetary problems and shaping up the school system would help a lot.

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