By: Deborah Johnson Wood
Three years after the City of Grand Rapids requested ideas to redevelop the vacant land of a former parking ramp at Division and Fulton, the winning idea - the Gallery on Fulton - is shaping up as the prime gateway to the downtown core, the Avenue of the Arts, and the entertainment districts on North Division and Ionia SW.
Plans call for the Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts (UICA) to anchor the project with 37,000 square feet of space on five levels—a gallery, a ceramics studio, a film theater, a “black box” theater for performing arts, and administrative offices. The design features a green roof outdoor gathering space on the fifth level, overlooking Fulton.
Fifty-six luxury apartments offer views of the city. Some 27,000 square feet of retail space lines up along Division Avenue.
RSC & Associates, CWD Real Estate Investments and Triangle Associates are developing the property under a partnership called Two West Fulton LLC.
“We had interest from some regional restaurant chains,” says Nick Koster of CWD. “The entire project will be sold as condominium units. The UICA condo will be sold to them upon completion, the retail spaces will be condominium space. The whole apartment building will be one condo space that the developers will retain.”
Another condo space is a 256 public parking ramp on level two of the structure that the City of Grand Rapids will purchase upon completion.
“We’re already tinkering around over there, testing the old parking ramp foundations to see if they’ll bear the weight of the new building,” Koster says. “Soon we’ll dig the test well for the geothermal HVAC system. We don’t anticipate having any other HVAC system in the building if it can sustain itself on a geothermal system.”
The UICA plans a ceremonial groundbreaking on September 17, 2008. Completion of the building is scheduled for spring 2010.
Developers hope to achieve LEED-NC Silver certification.
Source: Nick Koster, CWD Real Estate Investments
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Deborah Johnson Wood is the development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at [email protected].
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