By: Deborah Johnson Wood
In the fall of 2009, Baker College of Muskegon moves its culinary arts school to an $11 million LEED-certified building in downtown Muskegon, where the former Muskegon Mall once stood. The three-story facility on the south corner of Third and Western will act as a combination restaurant and classroom for aspiring chefs.
Dubbed The Culinary Institute of Michigan, the 39,000-square-foot facility includes Courses, a casual fine dining restaurant with instructional lab; The Sweet Spot, a pastry and coffee shop; a demonstration room; and five additional labs for pastries, chocolate and sugar design, and three hot food labs. The college broke ground on the project in April.
“We’re moving this program downtown for many reasons,” says Rick Amidon, college president. “First and foremost, we are landlocked on our current campus site and we don’t have the physical room to expand. The second reason is to invest in the renaissance of downtown Muskegon. There’s a lot of synergy going on right now and we think it’s a good investment for the city and our students.
“The third reason is that our students will take the classes wherever we hold them, so we can kind of force, if you will, a population to go downtown, so it’s a kind of 300- to 400-person explosion in downtown Muskegon.”
Amdion says the building will eventually be LEED certified, and will have most of the LEED points when it opens.
"We’re not going to have a green roof right away, and that's one of the requirements for LEED, but we'll add that later,” Amidon says.
Eleven years ago, Baker College launched the culinary arts program with 110 students at its current location, 1903 Marquette Avenue. The program has over 300 students today.
Source: Culinary Institute of Michigan; Rick E. Amidon, PhD., Baker College
Deborah Johnson Wood is the development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at [email protected].
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