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Downtown Muskegon progress


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The paving of the new Western Avenue downtown Muskegon is almost compete. Here is how it looked last weekend from up above. Four new retail shops opened over the last 6 months downtown and with an opening planned for another tavern by the end of the month, as well as announcement of an indoor football franchise to begin play next year at the Walker Arena, things are happening. And development on the vacant land is not far around the corner.

aerialconstruction.jpg

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Do you have a "before" picture of the area? I'm not that familiar with Muskegon.

Also, what is planned for the vacant land?

The sat photos from Google maps do a pretty good job of showing the area before. They were taken when the Muskegon Mall was still located at this site.

Google Sat image

The site has been designated a planned unit development by the City of Muskegon and the ordiance calls for a mixed use development including retail, office, and residential uses.

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Do you have a "before" picture of the area? I'm not that familiar with Muskegon.

Also, what is planned for the vacant land?

Even before the mall, that area was pretty much the main street of Muskegon. Water Winter Wonderland has four pictures of what that street looked like before the mall:

Water Winter Wonderland

One picture is near the top of the page and three more can be found farther down in the thumbnails. For some reason the clickable pictures aren't working today.

When the mall was constructed, all of the buildings on the left (west) side of the pictures where demolished except for three buildings. The buildings on the right side of the street were incorporated into the mall except that all but two of the storefronts were drywalled over.

When the mall was demolished, so were all of the remaining stores with the exception of the five that can be seen in the picture from drinsema-sybenga. And there is the story of how Muskegon destroyed a section of their downtown. Hopefully the new development captures the main street feel that was lost to a shopping mall.

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I drove through Muskegon yesterday and it was exciting to see the roads being built. Very SIMCITY! If you build it, they will come.

The paving of the new Western Avenue downtown Muskegon is almost compete. Here is how it looked last weekend from up above. Four new retail shops opened over the last 6 months downtown and with an opening planned for another tavern by the end of the month, as well as announcement of an indoor football franchise to begin play next year at the Walker Arena, things are happening. And development on the vacant land is not far around the corner.

aerialconstruction.jpg

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Also, what is planned for the vacant land?

There are three proposals for the vacant land. Two of them are basically to build the new fire station there, relocate the farmer's market there, and build a 4-6 story office building. The third proposal is to build a Harley Davidson dealership and four other stores and donate 2 acres to the city for the fire station. None of them are really that exciting, IMHO.

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Muskegon has needed a face lift for a long time now. I hope they can turn it around into a really nice city. It's the largest city on the lakeshore, but really lacks in comparison to cities like Holland, Grand haven, and Traverse City. All of those are signifigantly smaller and have a HECK of a lot more going for them than Muskegon.

I'd really like to see Muskegon blossom. There's a lot of nice areas around there, but I don't think there is much sense of community like there is in Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, etc.

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The townhouse building below has been discussed on a local planning listserve. It is in Norton Shores just outside of Muskegon.

It is the first residential building in a mixed-use development that has been promoted as the gateway to the community.

I hope that Muskegon can find a way to encourage better architecture.

144546064_8b4eea83d8.jpg

144546065_1879e9f7c9.jpg

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I don't really like when people compare Holland and Grand Haven to Muskegon. Its not really a good comparison. Muskegon has a MUCH more urban feel than those two towns. The Muskegon area has some very interesting a gritty neighborhoods. Muskegon has good and bad parts. There is NO beach in West Michigan that compare to Pere Marquette in Muskegon. In the next two weeks, I'm gonna make an ultimate Muskegon thread. I'm gonna start getting busy with the camera as soon as the weather clears. Any picture requests?????

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!!!!!, there's a clash of about a dozen architectural styles in this building....if you could even call them "styles"

...and there's even a motor-home slideout on the back of each unit. You don't see that very often on a building without wheels. :rofl:

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...and there's even a motor-home slideout on the back of each unit. You don't see that very often on a building without wheels. :rofl:

Yah, what are those cantilevered sections anyway? At first I thought they were gas fireplace box-outs, but it looks like there is a window in them???

On the fronts, there should be four large windows on the top floor where is now one, and on the first floor there should be at least two where they put one.

I work in real estate, and I just can't see anyone saying "Yes, I can see myself living here". Unless you can pick one up for $50K.

What is that across the street, more ugly cell blocks? The whole thing looks like housing for prison workers in the prison yard.

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Yah, what are those cantilevered sections anyway? At first I thought they were gas fireplace box-outs, but it looks like there is a window in them???

It looks like those sections could be some sort of utility area. I think that window is actually a large vent. For some reason only four of them have vents out through the roof.

What is that across the street, more ugly cell blocks? The whole thing looks like housing for prison workers in the prison yard.

I actually think what ever that is across the street could be considerably better. I can at least see full sized double hung windows and a better concrete detail across the roof line.

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some more development news

Former Anaconda building will experience rebirth

The Anaconda Wire & Cable plant on Western Avenue, a long-dead piece of industrial Muskegon, is coming back to life.

Owner Dennis Kirksey of Kirksey Investment Corp. has removed the top floor of the building and plans to invest $500,000 readying the ground floor portion for storage, warehouse and "very light" industrial use.

He hopes to have 130,000 square feet of floor space in the new Anaconda Flex-Space building ready for tenants by October.

The building also will get a new exterior facade resembling that of the old Anaconda building. New roofing and additional entries and exits and barrier-free access will be added, Kirksey said.

He told city commissioners his long-range plan is to build three five-story apartment towers on top of the existing building totaling 130 living units -- but not until Michigan Steel, a foundry on the opposite side of Western Avenue, is moved off the lakefront.

Full Article

I hope this project pans out to completion. There is a rendering in the Chronicle of the 3 apartment towers, but I don't have a scanner.

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some more development news

I hope this project pans out to completion. There is a rendering in the Chronicle of the 3 apartment towers, but I don't have a scanner.

skeetowner:

Please cut your article down to a paraphrase and post a link to the on-line article. Publishers will come after UP, even if you cite the author and source.

Thanks

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Yah, what are those cantilevered sections anyway? At first I thought they were gas fireplace box-outs, but it looks like there is a window in them???

On the fronts, there should be four large windows on the top floor where is now one, and on the first floor there should be at least two where they put one.

I work in real estate, and I just can't see anyone saying "Yes, I can see myself living here". Unless you can pick one up for $50K.

What is that across the street, more ugly cell blocks? The whole thing looks like housing for prison workers in the prison yard.

http://www.eastowne.com

Accross the street is a bank building. The slideouts are mechanical units and the "windows" are vents.

The townhouse photo is the front building on the right side of the perspective below. It looks like the back row of townhouses will face the garages instead of Mona Lake. Very strange.

birdseyeview.jpg

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144546064_8b4eea83d8.jpg

Wow. Replace the front doors with swinging saloon doors and we have an authentic brick and vinyl sided replica of Dodge City. Just add in Marshall Dillon and Miss Kitty for extra flavor.

Or maybe just add a deranged Uyl Brynner, and we'd have West World!

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