Architect of Urban Culture

Through his development of 14 properties that offer marina space, residential living and hotel rooms, Parkland Properties owner Jon Rooks is proving himself to be an architect of urban culture in West Michigan. He recently spoke with me about his past as a teenager, present as a resident himself in a Parkland project and future as a globetrotter looking for inspiration overseas. 

How did you get interested in real estate?
I was 15 when I convinced an investor to lend me $9,000 to buy two houses on the West Side. One was condemned, and the other should have been. About five months later after fixing them up,  I sold them for $44,000.

That was important for me because it gave me both a business and a feel-good experience of doing something useful. I was basically gambling my time that I was supposed to be working as a bus boy at some restaurant, but it worked out and taught me how to take risks.

Gradually, my projects became a little bit larger – I did a small condo project while at Calvin College, and when I was at U of M, I started importing Porsches and Mercedes from Europe. That broadened my scope to international business, but I eventually realized real estate was where I could get the most reward - that you can take something 90 to 120 years old and make something new out of it.

Why did you decide to stay in GR to develop your property management business?
After attending the University of Michigan Business School, I moved to Germany. When I moved home, I learned that the relationships and geographic knowledge I had in the community in which  I grew up lead to opportunity –  because I knew about more properties as a result of living here for a long time.

Your properties have a strong sense of history – original lockers are affixed inside Union Square alongside blackboards and the original wood floors. Where does your interest in local history come from?

My father was a very visual person –  he was a photographer his whole life. I lived in a home where, if a certain piece of artwork was out of place or a decoration was sitting on a table a couple inches too close to the center or the side, he would move it and place it just right. I learned the importance of aesthetics.

You started with waterfront properties – places such as Grand Haven and Spring Lake. How did you break into urban properties?
In 1998, I decided to retire after completing most of my waterfront developments, and thought it would be fun to do one last project in Grand Rapids -- Monroe Terrace. One thing led to another, and we've been marketing condominiums downtown ever since, bringing about 850 people downtown. There was a big breath of fresh energy that hit me when I did my first downtown project because everybody seemed in favor of us doing what we did.

How do you get inspiration for projects?
It can be a variety of things – being in a beautiful building, or another developer that has done something nearby that has gotten me excited. With HighPoint Flats in Muskegon, what inspired me was to see how the community and all these developers were completely redoing the area, having a tremendously positive impact on the community as a whole.

You recently completed an extended trip overseas. What insight on urban centers did your travels bring?
I was travelling for nine weeks straight -- I went to 11 countries and 17 cities –  Tanzania for a safari, Egypt, Dubai, India, Nepal, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, China. Each place that I went, I gained insight by observing what the cities are like, and what local developers were doing. In total, I've been to 54 countries, and everywhere I've been, I've always looked for ideas, so it's been a great source of information.

There are people in the world where the less they have, the happier they are – living a simplified lifestyle in a condominium building can bring more pleasure than a 'McMansion' out in the suburbs. Instead of constantly trying to have an impressive home that requires maintenance, you get to spend time with your neighbors. Even here, I've heard people say they've made more friends in the last three months [living in a condo project] then they did in three years in their former neighborhood.

My affinity for rooftop decks was greatly increased by travel overseas and seeing what the Dutch and people in Nepal do with decks. They very often take advantage of rooftop space – I was the first developer to put in a rooftop pool downtown – but in Thailand, almost every building, from five stories to 50, has some sort of rooftop access to the outdoors.

Also, the really important aspects for successful projects in any city are unit mix, design, amenities and investment value. And when you read stories about a condo project that fails, you need to remember there is still a demand for that type of product.

What challenges will we see in urban living in the near future?
We certainly will need more residential space.

We have to remember that there will be an unprecedented growth in population in the next three decades – the census shows that there will be a hundred million more people living in the United States. [Note: The world population is projected to grow from 6.7 billion in 2008 to 9 billion by 2040. Source: U.S. Census Bureau.]

Most people, when polled, said their preference would be to live in an urban area – close to entertainment, universities, medical expertise – places like Grand Rapids.  Even with our current population, if 1 percent of the people living in the Grand Rapids-Muskegon-Holland area lived in downtown areas, that would be 11,000 people. 

Where do you live?
I live at Union Square - I thought it would be really fun to live in a project that had a downtown pool so I moved from Monroe Terrace to Union Square.

What is it like living in a project that you helped develop?
Very rewarding. It does two things – it reinforces what we did right, and teaches me how to avoid things where I think we could have done better.

With all that you have to do – finding properties, supervising a business and construction – what is your average day like?

Sometimes I feel like I'm working when I'm in the shower, because I come up with a great idea, and I have to quick write it down when I get out, but real estate development is wonderful because between projects, you take time off. To me, it would be more overwhelming to be a doctor or CPA.


Keleigh Wolf has written for Grand Rapids Magazine, Grand Rapids Family Magazine, and The Grand Rapids Business Journal since 2007. In 2008, a book of her poetry was published. She currently leads the art coverage for REVUE Magazine and freelances for Rapid Growth Media.

Photos:

Condo, The Boardwalk Grand Rapids (interior design by Tylor Devereaux)

Parkland Properties owner Jon Rooks (Courtesy of Parkland Properties)

Highpoint Flats Muskegon (Courtesy of Parkland Properties)

Condo, The Boardwalk Grand Rapids (Courtesy of Parkland Properties)

Condo, The Boardwalk Grand Rapids (Courtesy of Parkland Properties)

Photographs by Brian Kelly (Unless noted otherwise) -All Rights Reserved




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