Grand Rapids developer targets Kendall Building for $3.5M overhaul

By: Deborah Johnson Wood

Brice Bossardet’s best guess is that every developer in Grand Rapids has looked at the Kendall Building in hopes of renovating it. So far, no one can make the numbers work for the long vacant structure at 16-18 Monroe Center NE. And there’s no guarantee that Bossardet and his Grand Rapids firm, Virgin Soil, can make the numbers work, either.

There’s the $750,000 price tag—a purchase contingent on the numbers working out.

There is some $70,000 in costs associated with getting a Brownfield Redevelopment designation. (The city unanimously approved Bossardet’s application last week; now it goes to the state.)

And then there’s a couple of million dollars more to redevelop a structure that’s been rotting and crumbling for decades.

Some of the expense will be offset by the Brownfield, historic tax credits, Downtown Development Authority grants, and a tax increment financing grant, but nothing is a given. And Bossardet says that, even with the help, the expense could be too risky to proceed.

So why bother?

“It’s the busiest corner in downtown Grand Rapids (Fulton and Division), and that’s pretty significant,” Bossardet says. “I love the architecture. I hate to see it boarded up like that. My first offer on it was November 2007. Then in August 2008 my investor was here from Santa Barbara and he looked at it and said, ‘Let’s go for it.’”

Bossardet declined to name the investor, but said that without investment help he’d never try to rehab the Kendall.

If successful, Bossardet will add momentum to a trend: more market-rate apartments in the city’s core. The five-story building has space for 12 apartments above two main level retail bays. Most would be two-bedroom, one-bath units. A few have 20-foot ceiling heights that can accommodate a loft bedroom and half-bath.

Source: Brice Bossardet, Virgin Soil of Grand Rapids, LLC

Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at [email protected].