Kalamazoo -
Harrison Circle Apartments - a few days ago -
Source:
LinkedIn | AVB
Bronson's Frank J. Sardone Cancer Pavilion is officially open. While some final touches are still being made, the center began seeing its
first patients on Monday, February 01. Hot on its heels, Ascension Borgess' cancer center is
scheduled to open in September 2021 -
• Video Link
Demolition of WMU's Draper and Siedschlag Halls is pretty much complete (that was quick) -
Source:
Instagram | @facilities_wmu
The site plan review application is in to convert the former Laing's TV repair shop and an adjacent, vacant office building into a new Whitley Memorial Funeral Home. A new addition will be built in-between the two existing structures to connect them. A new funeral home isn't the most exciting thing to post about, but it will bring "new life" to these old commercial storefronts -
Source:
Google Maps
Source:
City of Kalamazoo | Intersect Studio / Hurley & Stewart
The City Commission has approved funds to reconstruct and rehabilitate a stretch of Portage Street, from E. Michigan Ave. to Stockbridge Ave. This work is badly needed, and it will further strengthen the connections that are forming between the developing Edison / Washington Square area and the east end of downtown -
Source:
MLive | Google Maps
Night skyline shot from the top of Prospect Hill (my photo) -
Last, but not least, Kalamazoo City and Kalamazoo County are locked into a race against the ongoing homelessness epidemic in the city. The local governments are frantically trying to find better housing solutions for the area's disproportionate homeless population. A few different things are in the mix. First, the County tried to purchase the shuttered Lakeside Academy campus. But at the moment, they have lost out to a private developer. Although the developer has similar plans for transitional housing, the County is now considering using eminent domain to take the property -
Second, the City has started relocating people from outdoor homeless encampments to the
Knights Inn Motel on South Westnedge Ave.. This is in unison with the LIFT Foundation, the new owner of the property, which intends to convert the low-end motel into transitional housing. They are moving the homeless now (ahead of the extensive planned renovations), because of the single-digit temperatures predicted, the lack of room at homeless shelters, the fact that they are encamped on private property, and a recent, damaging propane tank fire that compromised one of the encampments -
Third, construction is now visibly progressing on the Kalamazoo Gospel Ministries new Women & Children's Shelter. Steel erection for this new 3-story addition is moving along, and there is a
live construction camera where you can see the progress -
Source:
Youtube
EDIT: Fourth, the City just erected a temporary warming shelter near the homeless encampment on Mills Street. They got it put up yesterday, just as the snow started to fall -
Source:
Instagram | @kalamazoocity