As Orion Construction adds more residential living spaces to a growing list of construction projects in Grand Rapids, the company itself continues to grow alongside its development efforts in the city, too.
“We’re growing projects, growing backlogs,” says Roger Rehkopf, president of
Orion Construction. “Now that we’re into the building mode of those projects, we’ve hired several people within the last six months – interoffice people, superintendents and project managers – to look at the growth that we’ve had.”
Public Relations Coordinator Jason Wheeler says though some of the new hires at Orion Construction were based on big projects like the new Arena Place development, which boasts a total of 200 full-time construction jobs alongside an additional 30 projected employment opportunities in the retail and restaurant industry when it opens, many will remain on staff as full-time employees even after the project is completed.
“Our workload and projects committed list is strong for 2015, so everyone who has been hired for a specific project at Orion will remain full-time after their job closes out,” Wheeler says. “They’ll head to another job.”
Aside from Arena Place, construction efforts on three other major Orion-backed development projects has resulted in the creation of nearly 300 more full-time construction jobs.
Rehkopf says every Orion Construction project intentionally integrates living space with work opportunities wherever possible with the intent being to create more jobs through accessible ground-floor retail space.
“In nearly every project we have, there is some component of multi-family and retail, where somebody could have a retail space and live above it. In fact, in Eastown you could almost live beside it,” he says. “Again, they’re a kind of work, play, live concept all in the same area.”
The construction of the 98,741-square-foot, 86-unit Gateway at Belknap has created demand for over 50 full-time construction jobs with more opportunities for job creation in the 7,500 square feet of restaurant space and 4,770 square feet of retail space on the ground floor.
The conversion of the former Aslan Building into the 25-unit, market-rate housing complex 7th Street Lofts, brought around 40 full-time construction jobs when development began in August, while the upcoming Sept. 22 groundbreaking for Eastown Flats at 1400 Wealthy SE will create an additional 75 construction jobs with 5-10 retail positions on the ground floor.
“We do see a lot of growth, a lot of construction opportunity,” Rehkopf says. “We think the residential market still needs additional units in downtown to be, I’ll say, in comparison to other large cities with downtown living and we think that by bringing more residential downtown that we’ll also see more growth and other retail aspects of downtown.”
Written by Anya Zentmeyer
Images courtesy of Orion Construction
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