By: Deborah Johnson Wood
Developers haven’t broken ground yet on an innovative mixed-use project in Grand Rapids’ Heartside neighborhood, but one commercial tenant has already agreed to occupy two floors. The project is Thirty-Eight at 38 Commerce; the tenant is Adtegrity.com, an advertising company currently located on 28th Street.
“We looked around at the different options available downtown, and the reality is that, to me, this project is unique,” says Adtegrity’s Scott Brew. “With Adtegrity being a dot-com, we like to be modern, cool and classy. I think that this project is going to be a whiz-bang space with its glass and steel outside and the great views.”
Locus Development will raze the current building at 38 Commerce and replace it with a $26 million, 80,000-square-foot building that includes a new parking ramp owned by the City of Grand Rapids. The focus of the design is two “liner buildings” that line Commerce and Weston streets, camouflaging the attached parking ramp behind.
With the move, Adtegrity brings 28 employees downtown.
“The ability to be centrally located and closer to the area where our younger employees prefer to live and entertain themselves is a big reason we chose Thirty-Eight,” Brew adds. “The project is truly authentically mixed-use from top to bottom — it’s public/private (funded), it has the parking components, and it has office, a restaurant and retail.”
Brew plans to make bus passes and bike storage available for employees who choose not to drive to work.
“Some employees are excited about not needing a car after we move,” he says. “Being in the city provides better access to mass transit even for those who don’t live down there.”
Adtegrity will relocate in early 2010.
Source: Scott Brew, Adtegrity; Craig Clark, Clark Communications
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Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at [email protected].
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