[animatedmartian]

New 400-room hotel proposed for DeVos Place convention center
By Jim Harger. MLive. April 21, 2017.



A new 24-story hotel tower could be just the thing to perk up an under-used section of DeVos Place convention center and solve downtown's need for another convention hotel, the Grand Rapids/Kent County Convention/Arena Authority (CAA) was told Friday, April 21.

The proposal would put a 400-room hotel costing up to $97 million along a section of the convention center located between DeVos Performance Hall and the Windquest Building, which is owned by the family of Amway co-founder Richard DeVos.

If created, the new hotel would enliven an under-used section of the street and create [the] type of convention hotel that as called for last year in a study that looked a ways to strengthen the city's downtown convention business.

The project, which would mean the city of Grand Rapids and Kent County would own a hotel, is still a long ways off from becoming reality, said Richard MacKeigan, regional general manager for SMG, which operates the convention center.

"Nobody is breaking ground tomorrow," said MacKeigan. The next step will be to hire a market consultant to see if a hotel could succeed on the site. "First and foremost, it has to be financially viable."

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http://www.mlive.com/business/west-michigan/index.ssf/2017/04/new_400-room_hotel_proposed_at.html