GRAND RAPIDS | Development Thread

[-GR2NY-]

Grand Rapids, MI

Geographically speaking, Grand Rapids sits between Detroit and Chicago and surprisingly,
little architectural influence is present from either of the two major cities. Instead, Grand
Rapids has proven to be a city all of its own. The city has experienced a tremendous
metro growth rate of more than 16% over the past 10 years. Consequently the need for
more office and residential space is on the rise and as figures show; our city currently
has a need for over 50,000 residences downtown alone. We have over 2 billion dollars in
new development at this current time. A figure such as this rivals cities around the globe
with exponentially higher populations. We here in Grand Rapids are very excited about the
cranes looming over downtown in this generally conservative city and I would like to share
with you a listing of current high-rises in the works. Thank you for visiting!







--Under Construction--

*River House Condominiums (Bridgewater Place 2) - 384ft - 34floors


*Marriott Hotel - 292ft - 26floors


*Icon on Bond




--Approved--

*Childrens Hospital


Listing not yet totally complete.

[DetroitKalamazoo]

I look forward to seeing those new towers downtown in a couple of years

[Breezyfingers]

As a Grand Rapidian living in Chicago, I hope to see some of the building boom we've seen here replicated up in Michigan. Thanks for the rundown on upcoming construction. Where is the Children's Hospital being built? And has there been any talk of highrise construction west of the river/expressway?

[GVSUguy]

Its good to see Grand Rapids has its own thread now.

What I know about the UC buildings:
River House-hasn't really started construction yet, but it should soon.
JW Marriot-UC and you can check out its awesome webcam at http://www.alticorhotel.com/index.html
Icon on Bond-first tower UC, but still in the beginning stages
Children's Hospital-I think this is just a proposal right now

Grand Rapids has a ton of develoment going on right now, but most of it is lowrise or renovations. There are three buildings of about 10 stories that are proposed too.

[KevinFromTexas]

Nice, I've always been intrigued by Grand Rapids.

And yeah, it seems to have a style all it's own. That's been one of the things that have made it interesting to me.

I've seen it before, but do you have any pics of the skyline? Any skyline photo threads coming up about it in City Photos?

[Surrealplaces]

I had no idea Grand Rapids had 1.4 million people in the metro area. Interesting stuff you learn on this site!

[LMich]

Just for reference purposes, here are some photos of the skyline:







Some from grdadof3 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/62831350@N00/):















Good skyline shots are hard to come by.

Also, Metro Grand Rapids is physically very large. It is a very spread out metropolitan area that reaches to shore of Lake Michigan. The urbanized area population is between 500,000 and 600,000 in population. The skyline isn't that impressive for an area this large, but the density at street level would give most equally sized cities a run for their money. The architecture is also very impressive at street level.

[420x]

There is approximately $2 billion worth of construction at the moment and a single $1 - 2 billion dollar development that should be announced soon. The large development is strictly under wraps and has pretty much everyone guessing. So, for a metro of 1.3 million - $4 billion of ongoing constrction is pretty damn insane.

[DerekfrmSA]

Great news Grand Rapids!

Looks good.

Question, I know very little about Grand Rapids except for what state its in, lol, but why does it say the MSA for GR is at 771,185 in the TOP 100 MSA's thread in City Discussions?

[dtsd]

Originally Posted by Breezyfingers

As a Grand Rapidian living in Chicago, I hope to see some of the building boom we've seen here replicated up in Michigan. Thanks for the rundown on upcoming construction. Where is the Children's Hospital being built? And has there been any talk of highrise construction west of the river/expressway?

Unfortunately I don't foresee much further development along the west. I remember when Bridgewater Place first went up, Robert Grooters, the developer, was disparaged by the local development community for putting up a high rise on, OMG, "the other side". It shows how small city / small minded the local developers are - which is a shame because downtown GR has so much potential.

[dtsd]

Originally Posted by DerekfrmSA

Question, I know very little about Grand Rapids except for what state its in, lol, but why does it say the MSA for GR is at 771,185 in the TOP 100 MSA's thread in City Discussions?

The 771k is GR's Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), which includes GR and its contiguous suburbs such as Wyoming. When you see numbers in excess of 1 million, they include outlying cities such as Allegan, Grand Haven, Muskegon and Holland, which most people (including the Census Bureau) do not consider GR suburbs. The 1.4 million is the Combined Statistical Area (CSA) and applies to the larger region, which includes several distinct cities and their own respective MSAs.

[-GR2NY-]

Anyone mind giving me more detials on whats under construction right now. I dont even have a rendering of the medical hill stairstep buildings.

BTW, whens the towers building coming down? Anyone know?

[-GR2NY-]

More coming next week!

[420x]

which most people (including the Census Bureau) do not consider GR suburbs.

Two counties that missed only one single requirement by less than one percent still count as suburbs. After all, 1/3 of Ottawa county lives directly on the border of Kent County and it is not part of the MSA... Lets get real here.

[dtsd]

Originally Posted by 420x

Two counties that missed only one single requirement by less than one percent still count as suburbs. After all, 1/3 of Ottawa county lives directly on the border of Kent County and it is not part of the MSA... Lets get real here.

So you’re saying that cities such as Allegan, Grand Haven, Muskegon and Holland, a couple of which even have their own defined MSAs, are not distinct cities, but are just suburbs of GR?

I think it’s fair to say these cities do have a strong relationship (economic and otherwise) being in close proximity, and thus it makes sense to combine them into a Combined Statistical Area, but to say it’s one continuous metropolitan area is a bit of a stretch.

I can’t speak to the criteria, just to what I know from living there. For example, go to the hybrid-satellite view on Google maps, and look at the urbanized (gray) areas of each of those cities. You’ll notice they’re bordered with very large rural areas (green) that separate them from Grand Rapids and its suburbs. Contrast that against Detroit or Chicago where the urban areas are uninterrupted.

[gvpeto]

Yes, it's quite interesting in that 3 of GR's suburbs (Wyoming, Kentwood and Jension) are each over 40,000, and Wyoming is about 70K! That's pretty large as far as 'burbs are considered.

[420x]

Grand Haven, Muskegon and Holland

These three yes. Muskegon would be dead without GR 25 miles away to breath a bit of life into it. Holland and Grand Haven are definitely metro GR as they meet all requirements except for falling 1% short on travel requirements. Never mind the fact that the county has almost half of its population on the border with Kent County...

Allegan, Newaygo, and Greenville/Belding are stretches, but they are definitely bedroom communitites. In a sense, part of the metro since they are almost at this point totally reliant on GR.

Plus, the Google map thing is wrong. GR and Holland are attached and GH and Muskgon almost are. Yes, there is an agricultural gap, but it is not an ocean and there is plenty of development in between - Coopersville, Allendale, Marne, etc... are all pockets of decent development in that stretch. Plus Muskegon and GH are creeping ever closer to Coopersville.

[rstravis]

the basic problem is that these things are defined by county. By all rights, Ottawa County should be included. I live in Allendale. It is a GR suburb. Anyone who says otherwise is delusional. Naturally, Jenison and Hudsonville areas are also suburbs. And you barely leave Hudsonville before you hit Zeeland, which is a definite suburb of Holland. Is Holland a suburb? No, but neither is St. Paul a suburb of Minneapolis -- that does not mean that they cannot share a metro area. Ottawa County makes sense as part of the GR metro. Muskegon is questionable, but the old delineation of GR-Holland-Muskegon as one metro does make more sense than lumping Jenison in with Holland, and putting Dorr and Wayland as part of the Allegan micropolitan area. By the way, how's this for logical -- part of the City of Holland is NOT within the Holland metro area, because they city limits lie in both Ottawa and Allegan Counties. Go figure.

Anyway, that's kind of off topic, but I just wanted to make the point that the current metro area definitions do not allow for a realistic number however you look at it. The CSA is probably the closest to accurate.

[Thskyscraper]

Those are some neat projects. Keep it coming GR

[TALLTOWER]

thats funny i have never even heard of grand rapids before?