Mark Sanchez: It's a big, big project that Corwell Health is planning up there on the hill. Give you the basics here. It's a new patient tower, a new emergency department, E.R., and it's going to have some more inpatient beds and operating rooms for Corwell there at the Butterworth campus on Michigan Street. The project’s right now in the early planning stages and conceptual at this point. The project's going to involve building 621,000 square feet of new space, a 621,000 square foot facility on parcels there at 230 Michigan Street and 330 Barkley Avenue. And that's just a little west and right across from the Meijer Heart Center.
And to give you an idea of how big this is going to be on that campus, the Helen DeVos Children's Hospital is 14 stories and covers 440,000 square feet. The Meijer Heart Center is 10 stories, 332,000 square feet. So, you're talking a facility at 621,000 square feet on the backside of that Butterworth campus, or the southeast side of that campus that abuts the residential neighborhood. You're talking a very, very large facility that Corewell Health is envisioning putting up there.
And basically because, you know, that Butterworth campus, there are some facilities on that campus that have been there a while. They're aging facilities. They're not quite conducive and designed to meet some of the modern medical technologies such as robotic surgery. Those robots are doing many more procedures, especially orthopedic surgeries in operating rooms today. They require space in the O.R. They also require space for the operator. And those operating rooms from yesterday aren't quite designed to accommodate that.
Plus, you have growing patient volumes, growing population, more people going to the E.R., the boomers are aging, they're doing more orthopedic surgeries. So, there's a myriad of reasons on why Corewell Health is planning this. And again, it's a major, major project that's in the early stages of planning there on the Butterworth campus. And Corewell's talking about this could be a project may be complete by the end of 2030 here in another almost five years.
Patrick Center: Physically, you're talking about the space of this new facility. Does it meet the height requirements, the regulation with the city of Grand Rapids?
Mark Sanchez: You know, that's something to be determined. When I spoke with a couple of the executives at Corewell about this, again, I got to emphasize it's conceptual right now in the early planning stages. They don't have exactly a cost estimate other than it's going to be a very large investment, and they don't quite have down those kind of details and how high this is going to go, how many stories. So that's one that's once they finalize these details and continue this planning through 2026 into early 2027 next year, then they'll have specifics and then they can start going through those approval processes, both the zoning approval, there's the state certificate of need regulations they'll have to go through to get authorization for it.
And during this process, the folks at Corewell Health and plan to start meeting with the neighbors. Again, there's the residential neighborhood abutting this property just to the east. And so, they're going to have to do some outreach and start engaging with the neighbors to showing some of these plans and this won't occur for a while until they solidify their development plans. But they want to get together with the neighbors, get feedback, get opinions and just kind of show them what they have in mind and how this is all going to work.
So bottom line, a lot of details still to come. But right now, Corewell has announced this conceptual idea for this massive new patient tower there in the Butterworth campus.
Patrick Center: Corwell Health also has a footprint over on the Monroe North corridor. The city of Grand Rapids is receiving, what is it, a $4.3 million grant from the state to develop that area?
Mark Sanchez: Yeah, this is a nice little win for the city of Grand Rapids. It's got some state money. It's basically, this concept is kind of improve that area, that Monroe North corridor. It's a $4.3 million grant, state funding to overhaul the stretch of Division Avenue north of downtown. Make it not so kind of vehicle-centric, make it little easier for pedestrians to get around that area.
The city was one of six communities the Michigan Economic Development Corporation selected for what's called the Michigan Talent Partnership Program. Their placemaking grants for public space projects, other funding went to Ann Arbor, Detroit, Houghton, and Lansing. Oh, and Mount Pleasant and all the funding together was about $23.9 million.
And the grant for Grand Rapids focuses on that Monroe North District because it's really an area that has a high concentration of young residents in the city. And the improvements would start at Monroe Avenue just south of Leonard Street and go down to I-196, the overpass, and then Division and Ionia improvements will start at the Belknap Park area and run south to the highway. So, you're talking about things like improving and repairing the stairway from Fairbanks Street down to Division Avenue and just improved pedestrian crossings throughout the area. So, to just make that whole neighborhood much more pedestrian friendly. And that of course will maybe improve the chances of seeing some new investment and some new development or redevelopment in that neighborhood.
Patrick Center: Does this also tie in with the Grand River development that's underway?
Mark Sanchez: You know, there's nothing specifically connecting the two, but obviously that whole Grand River development that's going north into that North Monroe neighborhood, there's all part of a broader vision to really bring investment to that neighborhood and just to improve that entire area north of downtown.
Patrick Center: We're talking with Crain’s Grand Rapids Business staff writer, Mark Sanchez. We're seeing AI everywhere these days, and now we're seeing a push reshaping Michigan startup funding.
Mark Sanchez: Yeah, you're correct in that. It's artificial intelligence everywhere. You talk to, you talk to business leaders, CEO, even small business owners. It's AI, AI, AI. And how do you incorporate this into your business and to serve clients, to serve customers, to operate the business, to plan, to do a lot of things?
And one of the things we do here at Crain’s Grand Rapids is we keep an eye on capital formation; private equity, venture capital, angel investments. And there's a report that comes out quarterly from the National Venture Capital Association and Pitchbook that just gives you an idea of what's going on out there. And first, a few of the numbers, you know, they counted 174 deals in Michigan last year that totaled nearly $1.44 billion. And that compares 209 deals for about $756 million in 2024. So, we saw some...a decline in the number of deals, but certainly a big increase in the amount invested. And that could be really tied to some really large later stage deals in the state.
But here's something that really jumped out in the report. It's called the Venture Monitor Report, which is that AI is just absolutely taking off in terms of venture capital investing in that area. In fact, Nationally, AI accounted for more than 65% of the nearly $340 billion in venture capital invested last year and about 40% of all the deals. So, you're seeing investors betting on this technology, betting on its application, and betting on the future in this. And anything AI or AI related is just drawing some really, really big capital investments right now.
And again, a couple of years ago, you heard about AI. but nowhere to the extent you're hearing about it today, it comes up in just almost every conversation I have these days with the CEO or you go to some business events and everybody's talking about it. How is it reshaping the economy? How is it reshaping business? How is it reshaping consumers, and consumer buying and everything? And the search engines we use on a daily basis. We now see how that's changing. So, it's really getting ingrained into the public consciousness and everyday life. And the number of venture capital investments going into AI-related innovations is a reflection of that.
Patrick Center: Crain's Grand Rapids Business staff writer, Mark Sanchez, thank you so much.
Mark Sanchez: Thank you, Patrick.