Two new "lifestlye centers" planned for Grand Rapids metro (Detroit: waterpark, hotel)

[magellan]

Two new "lifestyle centers" have been approved and are moving forward.

One is Orchard Park in Walker on the Northwest side, and features 240 acres and over 1.5 Million square feet of retail and residential development. Being developed by Trademark Properties of Houston, which has developed many similar village concepts in Texas, including Market Street at the Woodlands in suburban Houston. This is Trademark's first venture outside of their Southern region. They have teamed up with Urban Retail Properties of Chicago.

The development will be modeled after Market Street at the Woodlands, and will feature many new retailers to the Grand Rapids area, and some new to Michigan, including a possible Dillard's department store. Cabela's is also in negotiations with State officials to build in the development, as well as a hotel/indoor waterpark resort.


(Market Street at the Woodlands)


The other is the Village of Orchard Hills in Grand Rapids Township on the NE side, being developed by Robert Aikens & Associates of Birmingham, MI, BDR Development of Grand Rapids, and CBL & Associates of Tennessee.

The development will be modeled after the Village of Rochester Hills, and will also feature many new retailers to GR and some to Michigan, including: White House Black Market, H&M, Hollisters, Anthropologie, Brooks Brothers, Sephora, Stausburg Children, BCBG, Z Gallerie, Red Star Tavern, PF Chang's, as well as 40 other standard fair retailers like Banana Republic, Barnes & Noble and A&F. It will be anchored by a gourmet grocer and a boutique retailer.


(Village of Rochester Hills)

It's also rumored that both development teams are courting Nordstrom for both locations. But you know how rumors go.

Grand Rapids went from having only one regional mall 6 years ago, to having 4 regional retail centers in the next few years (1.4 Million SF Rivertown Crossings was built in 1999 on the SW side).


rbaikens.com
cblproperties.com
trademarkproperty.com
urbanretai.com

(not affiliated with either development)

[magellan]

The Orchard Park development that is planned to hold a Cabela's and several other large retailers took one more step forward this week, and received rezoning of adjoining parcels needed for expansion:

MLive.com: Everything Michigan

[suydam]

I'm of the opinion (and this has all been discussed ad naseum on urbanplanet.org) that a large mall on the NE side will kill the already struggling Woodland/Centerpoint combo at 28th St. and the Beltline.

For this reason, I look at Orchard Hills are a shuffling of retail away from 28th street and north up the beltline more than brand new retail for metro-GR.

Not that this is a bad thing...Centerpoint has been on life support for years.

[M TYPE X]

Grand Rapids, moving above and beyond ... to look like the rest of the country (Dillards).

[magellan]

Originally Posted by M TYPE X

Grand Rapids, moving above and beyond ... to look like the rest of the country (Dillards).

We'll take it!

[ByeByeMI]

Grand Rapids is awesome! :-) At least one area of this state gets it! :-)

[MIhome]

i said it before and i'll say it yet again,construction is the base of any economy,if you build you will boom.

[knocturnal]

and the sprawl continues....

[Rapunzll]

It's my understanding that a similar is going to be built here in Traverse City as well

[magellan]

Originally Posted by MIhome

i said it before and i'll say it yet again,construction is the base of any economy,if you build you will boom.

I'm of the same mindset MIhome. In order for the GR metro area to grow, it has to grow along the fringe. It doesn't have wide swaths of "urban prairies" like the city Detroit has that can be infilled. The Orchard Park (Cabela's) development in Walker is a bit out there, and is off an exit ramp where there is basically nothing but rural land right now and a fairly new industrial park, so yes it could be characterized as "sprawl". The other development proposed is right on the East Beltline (one of the most heavily traveled thoroughfares in Kent County), not far from where we live actually, and only about a mile outside the GR city limits at 3 Mile Rd. Growth has sprawled well beyond that area out to Rockford and 10 Mile Rd.

Plus it's jobs and tax revenue, especially if Cabela's draws visitors from Indiana, Ohio, Illinois and other states heading toward Northwestern Michigan.