Battle Creek -

The historic Anson Building, located at 119 W Michigan Avenue, is undergoing a $3 million restoration. There was an open house on Thursday to showcase the progress that has been made on this structure which had been vacant for nearly 30 years. The complete vision includes residences, tenants, a community co-op market, and a restaurant -


Source: WWMT

Pavilion Township -

Industrial Partners USA with Majority Builders just completed another massive industrial spec building on the outskirts of Kalamazoo. The 624,000 SF building, locate at 5720 East N Avenue, was constructed in two phases and has direct access to rail facilities. IPUSA is also the developer behind similar recent spec buildings in Portage and Battle Creek -


Source: LinkedIn | Majority Builders, Inc.

Bye bye farmland - hello warehouse and generic public domain music!

• Video Link

Kalamazoo -

A 36,000 SF substance abuse recovery facility - Enlightened Recovery - held a ribbon cutting this past week at 1430 Alamo Ave. on the city's west side. This heavily-renovated old medical building had been vacant for years. It has been converted into something that I think there is a great need for in our city -
















Source: Devin Anderson-Torrez | MLive

Well, mystery solved for this one, with the announcement Tuesday that the old Holiday Inn at 3630 E. Cork St. will be converted into a shelter, focused on providing housing for families in need within the county -

The hotel as it appears now -

Source: Google

I wonder what impact (if any) this will have on the adjacent Four Points by Sheraton hotel.

Ross Township -

The Bluffs at Gull Lake opened to residents this summer. The four-building, 48-unit apartment complex at 12135 M-89 offers 1 BR to 3BR units, with rates ranging from $1,500 to $2,500 / mo. -




Source: MLive | Provided by LKF Marketing

Kalamazoo -

Here's a random one for a lazy Sunday morning:

Roughly 215 seats were removed from the main orchestra seating level to create two, permanent center aisles at WMU's Miller Auditorium. Before these aisles were carved out, the auditorium boasted 3,419 seats. With the reduced capacity, it will still have over 3,000 seats (most of the traveling Broadway shows reportedly top out at 2,000 ticket sales). This means Miller will still be the largest theatre in the vicinity by a good margin, even with the seating reduction. I was never a big fan of the continental seating - it was the preferred configuration on Broadway, when Miller was built, but it is less common nowadays. So now we'll get the best of both worlds: more walking aisles for easier seat access, while retaining the deeper leg room in front of each seat (as a product of the former continental seating aisle clearance requirements) -


Source: Aya Miller | MLive

Kalamazoo Township -

Azon - an international building material company with local roots since the 1970's - announced it is expanding its Kalamazoo Township location at 2204 Ravine Rd. with the goal of relocating its corporate headquarters there from the city proper. Construction already started in September, with plans to wrap up the $2.4 million project in June 2025. Their current office building, located at 643 W. Crosstown Parkway, was recently purchased by Housing Resources, Inc., which in-turn is relocating its staff there from 420 E Alcott St. -


Source: MLive | Margaret Roberts

Kalamazoo -

The rebuilt Michikal Street officially reopened to traffic on Tuesday. Haters gonna hate, but this looks vastly improved over what we had before. For now, it remains 1-way southbound, but the plan is to eventually convert this to 2-way traffic, as connecting arterials get converted -








Source: Facebook | The City of Kalamazoo

Kalamazoo Township -

This is pretty big dreaming for the relatively-small township of ~ 22,500 persons (of which I am currently 1). The purchase of ~17-acres of land at 3006 Douglas Avenue for $1 million was approved at a meeting on September 9 -

If plans move forward, the township could eventually relocate its center of services from the east side to the west side, from a tight, urban island parcel to a relatively huge, semi-rural site. It's unclear what portion of the below property would go to the township (it currently reads as a singular, 74-acre parcel on public records, so presumably there is some subdividing in play) -


Source: Google Maps, October 11, 2024

Kalamazoo -

Some updates.

I took a walk around the perimeter of the event center site on Wednesday. It is a vast gap in the urban setting right now. Nature has even tried to gain a foothold in some spots, though it will be short-lived -









Meanwhile, a Northside neighborhood meeting about the development left more questions than answers, Thursday night -

Here's a recent photo of the Lofts at Ironworks development, near the event center site -


Source: Facebook | PlazaCorp

I also took a stroll for the first time along the rebuilt Michikal St. walkway. It feels completely different here now -





Downtown, First united Methodist Church is getting an exterior restoration & cleaning -



Check out the progress (inside & out) at KRESA's Career Connect Center -

• Video Link

Lastly, in case you missed it -

Oshtemo Township -

The Super 8 Motel that was at 618 Maple Hill Dr. has been demolished, after being deemed uninhabitable earlier this year by the township for various fire & life safety violations. It was purchased by AVB & Hinman for $1.5 million in August, after originally being listed for $2.3 million. The 3-story, 62-room hotel was a pretty bleak property, located behind a strip mall and functioning in its last years more like a halfway house. No word on if something will replace it yet, or if the lot will maybe be given back to nature for a while, while the developers decide what to do. The hotel was built in 1985 and last renovated in 2013 -


Source: Facebook | Edward Newhouse

Earlier photos, from June -




Source: Audrey Whitaker | MLive

Portage -

Tall Timbers is effectively finished, with move-in scheduled for December 1. You can still see some of the spring tornado damage in the background -


Source: Facebook | AVB / AJ Scheffers

Kalamazoo -

This news is over a month old now, but it's worth tracking on here. Friendship Village - one of the region's most well-established & desirable senior living communities - has shared some major development plans that could kick-off fall 2025. Plans include include as many as ten new buildings, that would result in a net total of 428 units across the 75-acre campus located on N Drake Rd -

Per the article, proposed work would include:

Everything shown in white in the below master plan would be new -


Source: MLive | City of Kalamazoo

Comstock Township -

Well, this came out of nowhere!

The full meeting packet can be found here. And here is the site under consideration. If this development comes to fruition, it would go a long way in helping Comstock establish a sort of actual downtown identity / core of its own -


Source: Comstock Township

Kalamazoo -

Here's a small little project (with potential big impact), planned for 1109 Engelman Avenue, in the Eastside neighborhood. 'Reach Sober Living' has plans to provide additional recovery housing with a new 4-unit build on a vacant residential lot. It's a simple proposal, but good-looking infill, and with a good mission. This was submitted for site plan review in February, I'm just now getting around to posting it. I'll have to drive by sometime to confirm if it is actually under construction yet -




Source: The City of Kalamazoo

^ as a follow-up to my previous post - I went by here yesterday and it is indeed under construction. Fencing is up and foundations have been poured for what is being called The Villas at Engelman -

Here's some non-Kalamazoo updates -

Battle Creek -

The new DoubleTree by Hilton officially opened last Friday, and with a revised final price tag of $75 million (I had this previously tracking as $59 million in the rundown) -


Source: Wood TV 8

Also in Battle Creek, a new housing development known as "The Blue Light Project" is planned for the site of the former KMart building at 200 Capital Ave. that was demolished in spring 2021. It took me a while to get around to posting this. An article from April explains that the project has been awarded $1.65 million in low-income housing tax credits from the State -

While I don't know anything about Edison Community Partners, their rather sparse website shows they are based out of Kalamazoo (as in, Edison Neighborhood) and indicates that they are a community-focused real estate development company and consulting firm, focused on fostering racial equity and social change through inclusive and affordable housing. I could find now imagery for the proposed development yet.

Pavilion Township -

Here's a recent shot of Abbey42. Construction is still ongoing, but the first few buildings appear very close to finished -


Source: Facebook | Abbey42

Some updates from the brownfield meeting minutes from September, published at the 10/17 meeting, regarding 116 W. Cedar:

Thank you for finding & sharing that! I wonder if the developers still intend to keep & integrate the old police station into the new development. It seems increasingly unlikely to me, especially with the news that the development is going to be 100% residential-focused up-front. Unless they can somehow build around it for phase 1. For reference, here is a GIS map that I marked up with who currently owns what. I could see a way that phase one could extend N-S along S Rose, and still preserve the old station for possible future use -



Just a guess, but I could see this being phase 1 residential, while saving the station for future planning / use -


Source: gis.kalamazoocity.org (with my markups added)

OMG, this was designed by my daughter!!!! I'm sure most on this forum will think that the design is lacking, but I'm a proud dad nonetheless. Not bad for being 3 years removed from college.
And one thing I learned from her, the architect is constrained by what the customer wants. You can have the most innovative designs, but if the customer has their mind made up, you have to go with their design requirments.