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Area 4/Area 5 Development


joeDowntown

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Hotel-condo development proposed near arena

GRAND RAPIDS -- A nine-story condominium, hotel, retail and parking complex would replace a parking lot near Van Andel Arena under a plan submitted to the city Friday.

http://www.mlive.com/business/grpress/inde....xml&coll=6

Also check out Chris Knape's blog - http://www.mlive.com/grpress/knapescorner/ - Good pics and commentary.

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this along with the movie theater project, if built would drastically alter the landscape along that street -- making it a nice entertainment zone. quite exciting, but i wonder if the city accepts the offer being it is $2.5 M less then they wanted.

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You should have included the overall perspective Rizzo.

225276593_d343443292_o.jpg

It really shows the mass of these two projects. Reminds me a bit of the Portland Pearl District photo I posted:

2006-01-02pearl11thLovejoy5.jpg

Here are some of the detail images:

225276595_84b2a6453e_o.jpg

225276594_f968f0450e_o.jpg

The fact that the condos probably won't come online until 2011 is good, to let the current projects get absorbed into the market.

If the City is asking $4 Million for Area 5, and the developer offered $1.5 Million, then that would stand to reason that the developers offer of $3 Million on Area 4 was also too low (since the Area 4 lot is much larger than 5). That's probably why the city has not made a decision on Area 4 yet.

Taken together though, I'd say these (in my opinion) are the best two plans that a developer could come up with for these two lots. Who cares if Rockford didn't submit anything.

If I had to vote, I'd say (edit) take the deal. These aren't in a renaissance zone, so the City stands to collect quite a bit of revenue off of these projects, and it would continue the Heartside revitalization efforts.

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this along with the movie theater project, if built would drastically alter the landscape along that street -- making it a nice entertainment zone. quite exciting, but i wonder if the city accepts the offer being it is $2.5 M less then they wanted.

No telling what they'll do. They have an offer from Faust to pay list price for the riverfront piece and haven't sold it yet.

This looks like a very nice project.

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This is a real nice development. I esp. like the urban canyon this will provide.

Actually two urban canyons tamias.

After studying this for a while, I really can't find anything wrong with it, except the theater facade and maybe the "possible pedestrian connection to the arena". Otherwise, I don't think the City could have hoped for anything better, and I think a lot of cities would die to have a proposal like this to mull over. Hidden parking, ground floor retail, mixed use, high-density, maximization of the entire lots, zero setbacks. Duh.

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Reading the Press article, sounds like there are a few hurdles that the city will need compromise on, including both the cost of the land as well as the undetermined (?) per-parking-space cost the developer will ask the city to pay for the public parking spaces. I really do hope the city seriously considers these projects and gets the job done without wrapping this thing in miles of red tape.

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I'm stunned...I first thought that the theater wasn't going to look all that great, but that other building balances things out for the 2 buildings...I overall love it.

You think with all this getting built plus tall house that the arena might have an expansion as well. I could definitely see it getting bigger

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I'm stunned...I first thought that the theater wasn't going to look all that great, but that other building balances things out for the 2 buildings...I overall love it.

You think with all this getting built plus tall house that the arena might have an expansion as well. I could definitely see it getting bigger

The arena was intentionaly designed and built with the infrastructure to be eventually expanded from its current 12,000 seat capacity to 16,000 seats. All that needs to be done is to dismantle the blank metal wall on the Arena's south end and build in the additional seating. Maybe this developemnt and all the others going into Heartside and the rest of DT will intice the city to expand the VA. 16,000 seats could support an NBA team.

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Good news! I don't really like any of the pedestrian bridges (although I suppose the one is to connect the two parking garages), but overall I like it. I like how detailed the plans here are too, usually we only get a rendering or two, but this has renderings and nice diagrams.

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Not to rain on the parade, but we need to keep in mind that the city couldn't support a CBA team all that well. NBA expansion into GR seems sort of pie-in-the-sky.

I agree...Grand Rapids would need to grow another 50% before a NBA or NHL team could even be considered, especially with Detroit only 2 hours away and Chicago 3 hours away. Also, I would imagine NHL would happen before NBA, with a sunbelt team moving back north (where hockey belongs).

Growing GVSU into a Div I university and having its games downtown would be a better bet for the city IMO. There's no reason GVSU couldn't compete with the MAC schools.

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I really like the median on the 131 business route. But does anyone else think that the floor plan of the building and the picture of the building next to the theatre, don't add up?

cherryionia.jpg

Cherry

Ionia

The floorplans for some odd reason are upside down :P I reoriented them so that they look like what a real overhead view looking southward would look like. (like on the line drawing in the same post)

Heres some street-shots I "created" in everyones favorite google program:

condotheatrestreet1.jpg

condotheatrestreet2.jpg

condotheatrestreet3.jpg

What you will see in between the Theatre, and this development will be about 3 stories tall (one story of retail, two of parking) with a large gap looking into the building.

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From the Press article:

Shannon was a bit disappointed only one developer submitted a plan for the lot.

"It's an indication that maybe there's so many other things going on that our developers are too busy at other things. If this doesn't pass muster, then we can continue to park cars there."

------------------------------

Why does it seem that the city is always disappointed that we don't have 100's of developers lined up waiting to buy every last piece of property the city wants to sell? Even though I feel our city is great and will get even better in the future, it's not that big of a city where everyone wants to build here. Until I read Sue Shannon's comments, I was thinking, "Wow! Someone wants to make that investment here? That's great!" Instead, "If only there were more proposals..." If I were the city, I'd be thrilled and would do anything to help them get this built. Maybe the offers were a little low, but maybe they thought they start with a lower offer since they're developing that whole block. I just hope the city gets on board with this instead of prefering a parking lot. :angry:

I guess I feel like these recent city "land sales" have always had developers coming to the table, but the city saying, "No, I'm sure there's someone better." Let's develop this town all the more and maybe someday there will be 100's of developers lined up. We've got to start somewhere!

All that said, I am really excited about this development! :yahoo:

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