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1415 Lake Drive - Kingsley Bldg - Redevelopment


GRDadof3

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Really, pretty shocking when you see what's underneath. It's going to look great when it's finished.

In other Eastown news, I noticed that the gated parking lot on Wealthy has a For Sale sign on it. Awesome infill development opportunity!

Joe

I was able to get one good one driving by. :camera:

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In other Eastown news, I noticed that the gated parking lot on Wealthy has a For Sale sign on it. Awesome infill development opportunity!

That is awesome. Is it the one on Atlas? And if so, do you know who owns it? Is it one of Uptown Assembly of God's?

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Really, pretty shocking when you see what's underneath. It's going to look great when it's finished.

In other Eastown news, I noticed that the gated parking lot on Wealthy has a For Sale sign on it. Awesome infill development opportunity!

Joe

Which gated parking lot?

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That is awesome. Is it the one on Atlas? And if so, do you know who owns it? Is it one of Uptown Assembly of God's?

<rant>

As far as I know, they have the only gated lots on or near Wealthy. In fact, they gate all of their lots around the clock (and post a guard on Sundays when they're open). And that's a lot of lots--the lot on Wealthy, the lot on Atlas (behind Pizza Hut) and the parking next to their building ... AND, lest I forget, the "Uptown Ministries" lot behind their Wealthy building. The only time I've seen the lot on the corner open was for the Street Fair. I suppose they must have decided not to be the world's crappiest neighbor and to show a little Christian charity for at least one day out of the year.

I have no idea why they bought all of those lots in the first place, but if indeed they are selling one, I would just love to know the price. If they're going to make a significant profit, they should be taxed to the full extent of the law. Uptown is a bad neighbor, and I would love nothing more than to see their whole real estate hoarding operation masquerading as a tax free church go belly up. (And I say this, surprisingly, as someone who attends church on a very regular basis). It is absolutely ridiculous that they hoard 10x more parking than they EVER use and simply sit on it tax free.

In terms of people who are actually doing some more good in the Eastown community, my tip of the hat would go to Kent Record and Guy Bazzani over Uptown any day of the week. Maybe once they're done with 1415 Lake Drive they can buy out Uptown and put the property to good use.

</rant>

Okay, now what was the topic again? :)

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Speaking of the Uptown AOG building, I thought some might find this interesting:

http://www.waterwinterwonderland.com/movietheaters.aspx?id=913&LocTypeID=5

This building was apparently the Eastown Theater at some point in its past life, and appear to have had an art deco facade much like the Grand Rapids Storage Bulilding at 1415 Lake. I have no idea if the church trashed the facade when they covered it up in fake rocks, but wouldn't it be cool to see this building restored and be somewhat of a match to the great progress being made at 1415? I wonder what ever became of the theater sign?

I'm really hoping this development at 1415 works, and that Blockbuster can be filled. May, just maybe, my dream of seeing Uptown AOG vacate will become reality. And then maybe we can get the post office to vacate too (or at least lease out most of the frontage for another use)! Dreaming, I know.

<rant>

As far as I know, they have the only gated lots on or near Wealthy. In fact, they gate all of their lots around the clock (and post a guard on Sundays when they're open). And that's a lot of lots--the lot on Wealthy, the lot on Atlas (behind Pizza Hut) and the parking next to their building ... AND, lest I forget, the "Uptown Ministries" lot behind their Wealthy building. The only time I've seen the lot on the corner open was for the Street Fair. I suppose they must have decided not to be the world's crappiest neighbor and to show a little Christian charity for at least one day out of the year.

I have no idea why they bought all of those lots in the first place, but if indeed they are selling one, I would just love to know the price. If they're going to make a significant profit, they should be taxed to the full extent of the law. Uptown is a bad neighbor, and I would love nothing more than to see their whole real estate hoarding operation masquerading as a tax free church go belly up. (And I say this, surprisingly, as someone who attends church on a very regular basis). It is absolutely ridiculous that they hoard 10x more parking than they EVER use and simply sit on it tax free.

In terms of people who are actually doing some more good in the Eastown community, my tip of the hat would go to Kent Record and Guy Bazzani over Uptown any day of the week. Maybe once they're done with 1415 Lake Drive they can buy out Uptown and put the property to good use.

</rant>

Okay, now what was the topic again? :)

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Speaking of the Uptown AOG building, I thought some might find this interesting:

http://www.waterwint...913&LocTypeID=5

This building was apparently the Eastown Theater at some point in its past life, and appear to have had an art deco facade much like the Grand Rapids Storage Bulilding at 1415 Lake. I have no idea if the church trashed the facade when they covered it up in fake rocks, but wouldn't it be cool to see this building restored and be somewhat of a match to the great progress being made at 1415? I wonder what ever became of the theater sign?

I'm really hoping this development at 1415 works, and that Blockbuster can be filled. May, just maybe, my dream of seeing Uptown AOG vacate will become reality. And then maybe we can get the post office to vacate too (or at least lease out most of the frontage for another use)! Dreaming, I know.

I think a cool Brew & View bar/movie theater would be great there, if AOG were to ever move. Something modeled after the McMenamin's in Oregon.

http://www.mcmenamins.com/Theaters

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Speaking of the Uptown AOG building, I thought some might find this interesting:

http://www.waterwinterwonderland.com/movietheaters.aspx?id=913&LocTypeID=5

This building was apparently the Eastown Theater at some point in its past life, and appear to have had an art deco facade much like the Grand Rapids Storage Building at 1415 Lake. I have no idea if the church trashed the facade when they covered it up in fake rocks,

I'm not sure who trashed the facade. I think it was remodeled at least once when it was still a theatre. If you want a better look in person at what it looked like, take a look at its twin on Division, the former Four-Star Theater. While in bad shape it is closer to the original design than the Eastown:

old four-star theatre

They had the same owner. When I was a kid I'd see their ad in the paper and think it was just one theater because they'd run the two names together "Eastown 4 Star." The Four Star building is for sale in case anyone wants to practice restoring Art Deco facades.

One other topic drift note - x99's Eastown link says that the Eastown was also known as the Bijou. That's not true, the Bijou Theater was a small artsy theatre, run by a GVSU professor, that was located in the CVS building in the seventies when that building for a time was a mini-mall.

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Just had to point out another drift note - from Walker's link:

8/15/2008 12:00:00 AM - Brian Deuel

This theater became a night club called Carnival in 1988 (hence the clown painting on the billboard on the north side of the building), and made national headlines in late 1989 or early 1990 when it started to hold dwarf-throwing contests, which turned into a major controversy. I was living in Bradenton Florida at the time and recall news stories about this controversy on CNN and in USA Today. Due to recurring violence, the club was closed in mid-1990 and became a youth club soon after.

blink.gif Just... WOW. Gotta say I don't remember that.

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I have no idea why they bought all of those lots in the first place, but if indeed they are selling one, I would just love to know the price. If they're going to make a significant profit, they should be taxed to the full extent of the law. Uptown is a bad neighbor, and I would love nothing more than to see their whole real estate hoarding operation masquerading as a tax free church go belly up. (And I say this, surprisingly, as someone who attends church on a very regular basis). It is absolutely ridiculous that they hoard 10x more parking than they EVER use and simply sit on it tax free.

Can you blame them? We all hate their empty lots, but what's their incentive not to sit on them?

But first, can we just confirm which parking lot we're talking about here, and then we can resume trashing people?

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There is no incentive to do anything with them. Or rather no disincentive to just sitting on them. They don't pay taxes and if they are paid for cost essentially nothing.

Innate long thought that religious exclusion from taxes was total BS. I would hope that they at least have to pay capital gains taxes when they sell. (although I am pretty sure they don't)

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Let's make a deal right now no one buy this. See, hopefully the church needs cash and pretty soon they pull a Kent Record and decide to do something productive with their street facade on Lake. In other good news, though, the Kent Record project is really looking a lot better than I thought it would, now that all the old ugly junk is all pulled off. It will be a little work, for sure, but I really think this is going to do very well for them. What would be really cool in part of the space is an antique furniture store with good selection decent quality stuff. No offense to the current players, but there's nothing in town that really fills that niche, probably because of the enormous amount of cheap space it would take to do it. I would think it could be done here by using tons of second floor space coupled with a first floor street facade and the freight elevator (which I presume exists).

Oh that lot. 30 years ago it was the site of the drive through for the Union Bank on the east side of Atlas (now the Pizza Hut).

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Let's make a deal right now no one buy this. See, hopefully the church needs cash and pretty soon they pull a Kent Record and decide to do something productive with their street facade on Lake.

Why the obsession over the facade? It's really not that much uglier than the way it was before.

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Why the obsession over the facade? It's really not that much uglier than the way it was before.

I wasn't referring to the appearance. By "productive" I meant lease it out to a business a la Kent Record, rather than let it sit vacant and dead for all but possibly two hours of the week. I don't want to get ahead of myself though. Right now, there's about to be a whole bunch of new space coming online that will need to get filled up. Any rumors on possible occupants?

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I think a cool Brew & View bar/movie theater would be great there, if AOG were to ever move. Something modeled after the McMenamin's in Oregon.

http://www.mcmenamins.com/Theaters

I love the McMenamin's lazy couches, comfy chairs + beer and pizza movie theater theme. No kiddies under the age of 21 (evening I think?). Their food is average but I think it's a cool idea.

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  • 1 month later...

Walked by this building today on my way to and from the Eastown P.O. and had my first chance to view the ground floor up close since they stripped all that horrible old siding off it and the original terra cotta tiles are a mess. I have an enormous amount of faith in Bazzani's ability to make a silk purse out of a sows ear but this looks to be a pretty daunting task. This will probably offend the purists out there but it might be a case where a new facade, something compatible with the rest of the building, might be the way to go. On the plus side, looking into one of the windows revealed interior spaces on the ground floor with awesome potential. Don't think he'll have any trouble filling those spaces once the project is completed. Now, if we could only relocate that Sheldon Cleaners...

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I thought the terra cotta was pretty bad at first too, but there are some pretty good new polymer-based products that can do a very nice job of patching up damaged terra cotta and making it look almost as good as new. If you've got a little bit of know-how, it's possible to restore just about anything. This should be much easier than some because the terra cotta is relatively uniform in color and texture. Some of fake granite I've got to think would be incredible challenging to match closely, if not impossible.

Walked by this building today on my way to and from the Eastown P.O. and had my first chance to view the ground floor up close since they stripped all that horrible old siding off it and the original terra cotta tiles are a mess. I have an enormous amount of faith in Bazzani's ability to make a silk purse out of a sows ear but this looks to be a pretty daunting task. This will probably offend the purists out there but it might be a case where a new facade, something compatible with the rest of the building, might be the way to go. On the plus side, looking into one of the windows revealed interior spaces on the ground floor with awesome potential. Don't think he'll have any trouble filling those spaces once the project is completed. Now, if we could only relocate that Sheldon Cleaners...

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Walked by this building today on my way to and from the Eastown P.O. and had my first chance to view the ground floor up close since they stripped all that horrible old siding off it and the original terra cotta tiles are a mess. I have an enormous amount of faith in Bazzani's ability to make a silk purse out of a sows ear but this looks to be a pretty daunting task. This will probably offend the purists out there but it might be a case where a new facade, something compatible with the rest of the building, might be the way to go. On the plus side, looking into one of the windows revealed interior spaces on the ground floor with awesome potential. Don't think he'll have any trouble filling those spaces once the project is completed. Now, if we could only relocate that Sheldon Cleaners...

I only did a drive-by lately so didn't notice the poor condition from up close. I worked on the ICCF/Blodgett building on Cherry and there was a lot of terra cotta restoration and matching. That was mostly cornice work and similar not your basic tiles so I would think something could be done here pretty easily. It was a firm out of Texas that specialized in terra cotta. And absolutely right about the cleaners!

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