Michigan Street/Midtown Neighborhood Development

[The Llanito]

On 11/12/2017 at 7:44 AM, GRDadof3 said:

There's a request before the city commission to "vacate" the little Prospect Ave cul-de-sac that sits between parcels that GVSU and Spectrum own, to facilitate a project by Spectrum and GVSU (wording in the application). No timeline given yet.

 

It's proposed to be replaced by a "loon" turnaround for the new Laker Line BRT. Interestingly in the drawings if you look closely they show articulated buses. 

 

 

 

I wonder if this will have any impact on the propsed plan to have the Laker Line go all the way down to the Spectrum Health parking lot on Plymouth. It seems like this "loon" could be the end of the route instead. 

[GRDadof3]

9 hours ago, The Llanito said:

I wonder if this will have any impact on the propsed plan to have the Laker Line go all the way down to the Spectrum Health parking lot on Plymouth. It seems like this "loon" could be the end of the route instead. 

In the narrative it sounded like this would be the end of the Laker Line. 

[The Llanito]

Some dirt is being moved around on the Third Coast site at Michigan and Benson. Now that the houses and trees have gone it looks like some concrete has been poured. I thought this development was going to include the whole block but strangely the building on the corner at Grand has not been touched yet. Any news or updated renderings on this project?

[GRDadof3]

On 12/28/2017 at 9:32 AM, The Llanito said:

Some dirt is being moved around on the Third Coast site at Michigan and Benson. Now that the houses and trees have gone it looks like some concrete has been poured. I thought this development was going to include the whole block but strangely the building on the corner at Grand has not been touched yet. Any news or updated renderings on this project?

No, it's just half (2/3's) of that block. Foundation was in I noticed a few weeks ago. 

This was the most recent I've seen:

https://www.urbanplanet.org/forums/topic/117265-brix-at-midtown-project-grand-benson-michigan-street/?page=5&tab=comments#comment-1436499

 

[HavingAhoot]

http://www.mlive.com/business/west-michigan/index.ssf/2018/02/medical_mile_partners_approve.html#incart_river_indexIts difficult to make a parking ramp look nice but this is pretty blah 

[Pattmost20]

2 hours ago, HavingAhoot said:

http://www.mlive.com/business/west-michigan/index.ssf/2018/02/medical_mile_partners_approve.html#incart_river_indexIts difficult to make a parking ramp look nice but this is pretty blah 

Gets rid of surface lots on Michigan and adds density so I can forgive its looks a bit.

[GRDadof3]

2 hours ago, HavingAhoot said:

http://www.mlive.com/business/west-michigan/index.ssf/2018/02/medical_mile_partners_approve.html#incart_river_indexIts difficult to make a parking ramp look nice but this is pretty blah 

Wow that thing's a monster. I agree with Pattmost though.

[GR_Urbanist]

1,220 spaces should pretty much erase parking issues for a while, maybe free up some plots for development. Certainly looks better than some other parking ramps that front the highway.

 

I'm wondering if GVSU/Spectrum is exploring a Sky Walk system, or some underground system to connect up all of this eventually?

[Guest]

Yeah looks like they designed it to expand as needed in the future.  This is supposed to break ground in April.

[HavingAhoot]

I know this isn't exactly Michigan Street Corridor but still of interest to Midtown/Highland Park people.   https://www.facebook.com/events/1733324883354903/

[GRDadof3]

I changed the title of this to Michigan Street/Midtown since I don't think we have a Midtown section? Anyway, owners of Sun Rental on Fuller are closing down tomorrow for good. Owner is retiring. I've rented quite a bit of tools and such from them. Asked if they were going to sell the business to anyone and they said "nope," just closing.  Wonder what will become of those properties? 

 

[joeDowntown]

3 hours ago, GRDadof3 said:

I changed the title of this to Michigan Street/Midtown since I don't think we have a Midtown section? Anyway, owners of Sun Rental on Fuller are closing down tomorrow for good. Owner is retiring. I've rented quite a bit of tools and such from them. Asked if they were going to sell the business to anyone and they said "nope," just closing.  Wonder what will become of those properties? 

 

Funny, every time I drive past this curved building I think "that could be a really cool project". Hope they are retiring for all the right reasons, and I hope someone picks the building up and does something cool with it.

Joe

[GRDadof3]

4 hours ago, joeDowntown said:

Funny, every time I drive past this curved building I think "that could be a really cool project". Hope they are retiring for all the right reasons, and I hope someone picks the building up and does something cool with it.

Joe

He said he was actually tired of getting "reamed" out by irate customers and ready to take it easy.   I've always found those guys to be very helpful, especially with tools that you might not be completely familiar with, and always fair about return times (they wouldn't nail you if you were 30 minutes late in returning something). That's why I used them for probably more than 10 years. I work with the public and I feel like people's patience is a lot less these days compared to even 10 years ago. I think we're in the age of immediate gratification. People get mad at you if you don't get back to them within 20 - 30 minutes, or right there on the spot if they text you. 

[GRDadof3]

I think this is Midtown? A church administrative building at 11 Fuller SE is apparently being turned into apartments. Anyone know anything about it? It's on the city's permit site but I don't recall seeing anything in the planning commission's packets. Integrated Architecture is doing the work.

https://goo.gl/maps/j8576unmpFo

[GVSUChris]

4 minutes ago, GRDadof3 said:

I think this is Midtown? A church administrative building at 11 Fuller SE is apparently being turned into apartments. Anyone know anything about it? It's on the city's permit site but I don't recall seeing anything in the planning commission's packets. Integrated Architecture is doing the work.

https://goo.gl/maps/j8576unmpFo

That's been in the works for a while and discussed on here. My next-door neighbor is a partner with Cherry Street Capital and so I've known about this project for a little while but it's pretty vanilla as far as development goes around here. I guess more housing is helpful.