This page is intended to be an index of information and content related to the Three Towers project.
UPDATES
2025-10-17: The project was mentioned at the end of the 2025-10-07 Grand Rapids Economic Development committee meeting (Youtube). Discussion there suggest the project has not substantively changed and that it will appear on the October 28th agenda of the Michigan Strategic Fund board. I assume that means that the office tower component is still included in the project. Commissioner Perdue asked if the residential unit counts, etc... have changed, and the answer seemed to indicate the negative.
Norm Van Eeden Petersman, the Director of Membership for Strong Towns, will be presenting on October 28th at the DGRi conference room (29 Pearl St NW Suite 1). The night's conversation will focus on safe and productive streets, multi-modal transportation, and how we can achieve positive incremental changes in Grand Rapids.
The municipal agenda for the Planning Commission meeting on 2025-10-09 is 👉here👈
735 Ritzema Ct. SW
The is a request for a Special Land Use (SLU) for the operation of a childcare and social services facility which is a use which requires special dispensation with the properties LDR (Low-Density Residential) zone district.
Two years ago we published "How We Commute" based on what was then the latest community survey data from 2021. We now have data up through 2023. Given the significant decline in traffic will we see any changes in commute times and mode share?
One of the most difficult messages to convey in the housing conversation is that the largest share of people moving to the city are high-income households earning more than 120% AMI; those are households with six figure incomes. The trend impacts everything; it does potentially drive displacement of existing residents as newer households can out-compete existing lower income households, additionally higher income households consume more housing (sq/ft) than lower income households.
Income Cohorts
This trend of urbanization of higher income households is often invisible to existing residents. And it can seem counter-intuitive to many. The cultural expectation that when people succeed they move "out" is still commonly held even though it has not been true in a general sense for ~20 years.
“A 2023 survey from the National Association of Realtors found that 77 percent of respondents would pay a premium to live in a walkable neighborhood, and for Gen Z, that figure shot up to 92 percent." - NAR research, 2023
To help understand this phenomenon of household shift let's look at a highly correlating factor: educational attainment.
