A $5.6 million rehabilitation of the dreary Junior Achievement building. A brand new, 10-story, $15 million boutique hotel. The $27 million Tall House condominium complex. The $60 million Hauenstein Parkinson’s Center at St. Mary's medical center.
I went to the Heartside Business Association's annual meeting and a real estate convention broke out.
Jerry Broersma, president of the HBA, detailed project after project in a mind-bending 10-minute presentation about what's on the construction drawing board for the neighborhood. A modern $24 million development at the corner of Division and Fulton featuring a jazz club and 80 condos. A new parking ramp. A multi-screen movie theatre, the central city's first in decades. What else do you build in an urban district that increasingly has the major amenities?
"Our theme this year is 'where to from here,'" said Broersma, a partner in the IT consulting firm PEC Technologies. "We've seen a tremendous amount of development in Heartside. I count about a dozen different developments going on right now, and I'm sure that's not all of them."
This October marks the 10th anniversary of the opening of Van Andel Arena. In its first decade, the arena has attracted millions of people to downtown Grand Rapids for big-time concerts, major sporting contests, and special events like rodeos and conventions.
But the $77 million construction project also unleashed a wave of public and private investment that continues to this day and appears to be accelerating. Put simply, the Arena essentially set the stage for perhaps the most remarkable rags to riches revitalization story yet to be written in the city.
"We've seen enormous change in Heartside," said Mayor George Heartwell, a special guest at the business association's meeting who for 15 years worked at Heartside Ministry, a social service organization located in the district. "The growth and development, the vitality, the positive spirit about the neighborhood is really quite extraordinary."
Coming Full Circle
In the late 1800's, Heartside grew up around Union Station, a train depot and rail yard located about where Van Andel Arena now stands. The neighborhood thrived then, providing temporary housing, pubs, brothels, and other services for travelers.
With the invention of the automobile, however, train travel became increasingly less popular and the railroad industry struggled, along with local workers and businesses who depended on it. Dock workers, hoteliers, and others lost their jobs or went out of business and the Heartside district became increasingly less stable.
The neighborhood received a brief boost in 1982 when it was recognized on the National Register of Historic Places. The action halted the reckless demolition of underutilized yet valuable buildings. But Heartside remained a haven for prostitution, drug traffic, and ill fortune into the early 1990's.
Then Van Andel Arena opened on October 8, 1996, immediately touching off the modern movement to revitalize the area, which is defined generally by Fulton to the north, Lafayette to the east, Wealthy to the south, and US 131 and the Grand River to the west.
"The neighborhood went from being a virtual throwaway to the hottest real estate in the city," Mayor Heartwell said. "What we've seen take place since that historic designation and especially since the construction of the Van Andel Arena is this beginning and now burgeoning redevelopment of the neighborhood."
A Whirlwind of New Development
The reinvestment began slowly, and tended to target food and drinks and nightlife to complement the young arena district:
But speculation steadily picked up as entrepreneurs took notice and housing quickly became a bigger part of the mix:
- A $2 million renovation of the Lenox Apartments.
- A $1.7 million rehab of Tannery Row.
- A $7.5 million reconstruction of the Martineau apartment building.
- A $3.3 million renovation of the Kelsey Apartments.
- A $13.3 million redevelopment of the Weston Apartments.
Public agencies also targeted their investments to enhance the urban area:
- $530,000 to construct Heartside Park.
- $19 million to build Rapid Central Station.
- $4 million for historic streetscaping along Ionia Avenue.
Business activity broadened and accelerated:
Into the Future, Embracing the Past
Today, some $700 million worth of new development projects sit on the drawing board waiting to break ground in Heartside. But the rapid transition from nearly forgotten ghetto to a mainstream urban hub has been both positive and a source of tension, according to Mayor Heartwell.
On one hand, the redevelopment rush created a boom in commercial, residential, and entertainment opportunities. But Heartside remains the principal residential district for a community of extremely low-income and homeless people. In fact, Heartside contains within its borders the lowest income census track in the city, according to 2000 federal data.
"You have this exciting new development with upscale residential and entertainment opportunities at the same time you have this permanent residential population who is desperately poor," Mayor Heartwell said.
To some extent, the community recognizes the challenges and social service agencies continue to play a prominent role in neighborhood redevelopment.
- Catholic Social Services invested nearly $4 million in new offices.
- St. George Orthodox church spent some $1.4 million to renovate and expand their facility.
- Western Michigan University invested $2.5 million in a building for its downtown campus.
- Heartside Ministry undertook a $520,000 renovation project.
- Mel Trotter launched a $4.5 million renovation of their shelter.
- Dwelling Place, a nonprofit housing developer active in the district, invested $2.5 million to rehab their administrative offices.
Getting back to Jerry Broersma's question about what's next, Mayor Heartwell added: "The opportunity to do something unique and different now presents itself. To be able to maintain good, quality housing for people who are poor at the same time we accommodate the needs of an upscale and more affluent population that's coming in for the restaurants, clubs, and places to live. We're at a wonderful point of transition. And we can make something happen here that is really quite rare in the country."
Photographs by A J Paschka and Brian Kelly - All Rights Reserved
Images top to bottom:
Van Andel Arena - photo by Brian Kelly
Tall House rendering courtesy Mary Witte
This old train station was renovated by Design Plus - photo by A J Paschka
Playground equipment at Heartside Park - photo by A J Paschka
The Black Rose Irish Pub - photo by A J Paschka
Mosaic mural in Heartside Park - photo by A J Paschka