Mark Sanchez: There's a lot of activity on the riverfront. You know, obviously we've talked many times on this program about the soccer stadium and the Acrisure Amphitheater. Now here of late, we see this major, massive project proposed by the DeVos and Van Andel families. They have an entity, Fulmar Property Holdings LLC. It is a $739 million project called Fulton and Market Development. Calls for three high-rise towers on 10 riverfront parcels including the former Charlie's Crab restaurant on Market Avenue. The towers would have office space, 595 apartments, and a 130-room hotel with 76 condos. So, it's a big, big project, and the apartments alone would account for about $316 million of the expected project cost. So, it's a big project. It's going to change the skyline in Grand Rapids. It's going to change that riverfront there toward the south side of downtown. And it's now started and going through all those approval processes that are needed for something of this scope and scale.
Patrick Center: A number of studies, consulting work is done. Clearly the DeVos and Van Andel families see a need for this.
Mark Sanchez: They're not folks who are going to spend this kind of money or, or much money to when they don't see a market need or a market demand for this type of stuff. And here's one of the interesting aspects of the project that my colleague here at Crain's Grand Rapids wrote about Rachel Watson in a story last week. The big deal for housing right now anywhere in Grand Rapids and anywhere in West Michigan and around the nation really is affordable housing. And of course everybody's got a different definition for that, there's a lot of different things. But here's a couple of interesting things. The apartments would account for so much of the project and they're expected to go for a rent that's about 150% of the area median income. Now, in lieu of having affordable units in the development, the project team, they plan to donate $8.5 million over a 20-year period to the Grand Rapids Affordable Housing Fund from a residential tax capture. It's also applied for about $543 million in incentives from a transformational brownfield plan to support the project. But the idea being that you would get more affordable housing units using this kind of this payment in lieu of having affordable housing units in the development. The idea, the notion is that you would have more affordable units elsewhere in more affordable areas neighborhoods than you would involving in that project. So that's a unique aspect of the project and we'll see in the coming weeks, months probably on this whole approval process and where this goes from here.
Patrick Center: South of Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo, you're also seeing investment in the community with Kalamazoo Forward Ventures.
Mark Sanchez: Yeah, this is a really interesting project by some individuals in Kalamazoo. Many of them are leaders in the Black community in Kalamazoo and they have formed what's known as Kalamazoo Forward Ventures. It's a capital venture capital fund. They're going to invest in startups. They're going to invest in Main Street style small businesses and invest in a real estate project focused on affordable housing and workforce housing. They have $50 million committed to this fund from investors. They should start maybe sometime soon roll out and publicly announce their first deals. But it's a really an effort to kind of just bring Kalamazoo up further. Kalamazoo has come a long way in the last many years and their idea is to now take it further, invest in those entrepreneurs. Really folks from underrepresented communities where you have not seen capital flow traditionally in particularly large amounts. So, they want to invest in underrepresented communities, underrepresented entrepreneurs and really seed some new businesses, help some small main street style businesses get going and flourish and then help create more affordable housing down there in Kalamazoo. And it's a 10-year fund. That's a little similar in nature to what the venture fund created a few years ago here in Grand Rapids, the New Community Transformation Fund that invests in companies founded by people of color. It's a new venture and this is the type of thing you're beginning to see more of is organizations, individuals forming these types of funds that kind of mix that investing with kind of social capital, social equity they're trying to create and even the playing field a little bit.
Patrick Center: We're talking with Crain's Grand Rapids Business staff writer, Mark Sanchez, an interesting take in downtown Grand Rapids where pedestrians walking past vacant storefronts can snap a QR code and give their input in what type of business they would like to see in that vacant space.
Mark Sanchez: Yeah, this is an interesting effort by the city to retain and attract new businesses. This is a story here recently by, again, by another co-worker, Abby Poirier. Basically, if you work and live in downtown and you walk past some of these vacant storefronts, you may see a sign in the window. It has a QR code. Take out your phone, scan that QR code, take an image of it, and you will get a survey that pops up on your phone that kind of asks your opinion on how empty spaces should be repurposed here in downtown. It's an effort by the folks at the city and the Grand Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce in the Downtown Grand Rapids, Inc. to just get some public opinion about what would people like to see go into these empty storefronts in downtown. As well as kind of create and collect some data for real estate folks, for the business brokers and real estate brokers who are marketing these empty spaces about, you know, what does the public want? What would the consumer support? So, it's an interesting little venture, kind of using this modern-day technology to just kind of gauge some opinions at a time when the storefront vacancy in downtown is above 20%. And just to mention a few of the spaces you can look at, Grand Rapids Brewing Company at One Ionia. There are other locations such as 15 Ionia, which is a home to a brunch restaurant, Daisy's Place. There's 40 Pearl Street where there is the Wine Bar. 40 Pearl that closed last month. There's the former Stan's Tacos at 67 Ottawa Avenue. And then there's the place at 146 Monroe Center that used to occupy kind of a lunch restaurant called Freshi. So those are just a few of the places. And again, if you live or work in downtown and you're out for that afternoon stroll or headed over for a meeting, you want to offer a little opinion or two about what you'd like to see in downtown, stop at one of these places and scanned that QR code in the storefront window.
Patrick Center: No QR code needed here. The federal government getting involved in restarting Palisades Nuclear Power Plant.
Mark Sanchez: This is an interesting story that's been going on a while. The Palisades Nuclear Power Plant down near South Haven, they got a big loan this week from the federal government. You may remember that the previous owner had decommissioned and shut down the power plant. Now there's a new owner that really would like to restart the nuclear generating, nuclear power there down at that facility. A $1.5 billion federal loan that has been provided to help restart it. And you know, nuclear power despite some of its clear obvious aspects, you know that is a clean source of generating electricity. So, the plant shut down in 2022 after operating for about 50 years. Now there's some money for the new owner to recommission and start generating power again in that facility, probably within another couple of years.
Patrick Center: Crain's Grand Rapids Business staff writer, Mark Sanchez, thank you so much.
Mark Sanchez: Thank you, Patrick.