Grand Rapids Community College names new $34M campus, preps for main campus renovations

Deborah Johnson Wood

Grand Rapids Community College DeVos Campus is the new name of the former downtown Grand Rapids Davenport University campus purchased by GRCC in 2009. The DeVos and VanderWeide families contributed substantial gifts to the renovation of the campus, says Steven C. Ender, GRCC president. He did not indicate the amount of the donations.

In addition to installing state-of-the-art Steelcase LearnLabs in two classrooms of Sneden Hall on the DeVos Campus, GRCC plans to renovate Warren Hall this winter for faculty offices and has relocated several departments – human resources, payroll, business and financial services, purchasing, and employee professional development and enrichment – to the new campus.

That move frees up space in the College Park Plaza building on N. Division Avenue. The college will initially use the space for a staging area during the renovations of several downtown campus buildings, says Vicki Janowiak, executive director of operational planning. An August 25 press release states those buildings are the Peter and Pat Cook Academic Hall, the Main Building, and the Gerald R. Ford Fieldhouse.

"We're also going back through the main campus and installing new technology to upgrade the classrooms so faculty will have the type of instructional technology we're encouraging them to use," Janowiak says. "That will bring the entire college's technology up to a new standard level that each classroom should have."

GRCC says the DeVos Campus renovation cost $34 million, $1.1 million less than the proposed cost of constructing a new classroom building.

GRCC serves 30,000 students on seven Michigan campuses.

Source: Vicki Janowiak, Grand Rapids Community College; Press Release from Grand Rapids Community College

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Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at [email protected]. Development News tips can be sent to [email protected].