After 18 years on Monroe North, Grand Rapids' LaFontsee Galleries plans move

Deborah Johnson Wood

LaFontsee Galleries/Underground Studio was one of the first businesses to brave Monroe North's collection of abandoned warehouses back in about 1992, with the hope that the district would become a Mecca of art galleries and boutiques. Instead, developers turned the warehouses into condominiums and office space.

So gallery owners Scott and Linda LaFontsee seized the opportunity to purchase a 2.5-acre property and the former Network 180 building at 833 Lake Drive and join four area galleries – Byrneboehm Gallery, Richard App Gallery, Mercury Head Gallery and Gallery 154 – in creating an art lover's destination.

"I personally walked into each of those galleries and talked to them about our move to the district," says Scott LaFontsee. "They were all very open-armed."

LaFontsee's founded the gallery 24 years ago as a small frame shop and now has 14 employees and two interns.

"A gallery our size is not this common," he says. "So we're a little different than most places because of that."

The 24,000-square-foot building will retain its mid-century modern outside, but LaFontsee plans to gut the entire inside and open it up for display space, framing and for working on large projects, such as the framing and installation of the artwork for all 13 floors of the new Helen DeVos Children's Hospital, opening soon.

LaFontsee hopes to create an outdoor sculpture garden on the property in the future. He says he'll open the building as-is to the public on October 22 when Site:Lab (of "Land of Riches" fame) will take over the building for a one-day art installation that will be open to the public.

The current gallery, 820 Monroe Ave. NW, will remain open until its move in spring 2011. For the next few weeks, it will be an ArtPrize venue for 21 artists.

"It's easy right now to be afraid of this economy, but it's not all bad," LaFontsee says. "We just bought a building we could not have afforded a year ago. I believe in this community. I believe it's not going to get worse, it's going to get better."

Source: Scott LaFontsee, LaFontsee Galleries/Underground Studio

Related Articles
Long Live LaFontsee
Amenta -- A Man of Riches

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].