Urban Grand Rapids

On 2024-07-16 the City Commission and Planning Commission held a joint meeting to begin final review of the new Bridge To Our Future Master Plan. City Commissioners O'Connor (1st Ward) and Robbins (1st Ward) were absent. The format of the meeting is a presentation by the Planning Department and their consultants, followed by questions from City Commission and then the Planning Commission.

A presentation was made today (2024-07-11) to the Downtown Development Authority (DDS) about the proposal to house a childcare center at the Rapid Central Station (RCS). This is an idea which has been under development for some time. The video of the meeting can be found 👉here👈 with this agenda item of the meeting beginning at 1:17:00. It is difficult to imagine a more perfectly urbanist project than a childcare facility provided at a transit center - - and this may be the first such facility in the nation. 👍

There will be a joint meeting of the Planning Commission and the City Commission on July 16th at 11:30am - 1:30pm in the City Commission Chambers to discuss the adoption of the new Master Plan. The 👉agenda item for this meeting👈 contains the proposed adoption schedule.

There are two "Affordable Housing" subdivisions of the City of Grand Rapids: the Grand Rapids Affordable Housing Commission (GRHC) and the Grand Rapids Affordable Housing Fund Board (GRAHFB). The two units of government are completely distinct.

UPDATE 2025-03-21: The status of 1340 Monroe Ave NW has been changed to defunct, due to financing challenges.

UPDATE 2024-09-25: 851 Leonard St NW changed from status defunct to construction; fencing has gone up around the site.

UPDATE 2024-07-17: A demolition permit has been filed for 851 Leonard St NW, and the City Commission has approved the PRD for 385 (301) Leonard St NE. These projects may be in Construction status soon.

Is 2024 the year of Leonard St? As the [re]development of Wealthy St and Bridge St corridors have continued at a steady pace the [re]development of other corridors has been more uneven. But now the Leonard St corridor seems to be rolling; if all the projects come to fruition the corridor will have between 700 and 850 new residential units within five (5) years. Having between eight hundred and a thousand new neighbors would have a significant impact on the vitality of the corridor which is already seeing a growing number of open store front businesses; including Furn On Leonard to Nature's ReLeaf. These new shops have joined legacy businesses like The Shade Shop, Ralph's Food Market, Wengers Bowling Center, and Northwestern Home Furnishings which have endured all the economic twists and turns of the last century, as well as the long slow catastrophe that is American Urban Planning. While a significant amount of vacancy remains - meanwhile the Wealthy St corridor flirts with zero vacancy - the direction of the Leonard St corridor is heavy with promise.

Over on the ancient forum site UrbanPlanet.org there is 👉a thread where regular participants make predictions👈 at the new year for the upcoming year, and review their predictions from the previous year. Each year proves that predictions are a perilous business. It is all for fun. I thought, given that we are now half way through 2024, that I would tally my current score; see if it improves or gets worse by year end.

The final engagement phase of the new master plan development process has concluded. And there is a draft plan (PDF, 80MB). At some point in the near-ish future a final proposed plan will become available and then that plan will rest for a sixty-three (63) day comment period.