By: Deborah Johnson Wood
Organizers of the University of Michigan Urban Land Institute Real Estate Forum opted to hold its annual conference outside the Detroit area for the first time in the forum’s 22 year history. This week, Grand Rapids is hosting WEST SIDE STORY: Grand Rapids, Grand Vision, Grand Region at the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel.
In this issue of Rapid Growth, our Development News and Innovation and Job News segments will be covering the two-day event, which began yesterday and will conclude this afternoon. Look for updates this evening.
Hundreds of professionals from all over the state—city planners, developers, potential developers, attorneys and real estate professionals—are all together under one roof to learn about Grand Rapids’ commercial real estate boom and how it happened. The forum also showcases regional collaboration and how public/private partnerships spur development.
“The purpose of the forum is to showcase real estate best practices,” says Beverly Lyons, spokesperson. “It’s a learning endeavor and we learn through taking a walking tour of developments and redevelopments in downtown Grand Rapids, a bus tour of Grand Rapids neighborhoods, and by attending presentations from the nation’s leading real estate practitioners.
"We look at existing development and look for future development opportunities.”
Yesterday’s guided downtown walking tour included the JW Marriott, the Avenue for the Arts, Monroe Center, the Grand Rapids Art Museum and other completed and proposed development projects.
Today’s narrated bus tour takes conference goers to the neighborhoods and business districts experiencing revitalization: the West Side, including GVSU’s Pew Campus and American Seating Park; Cherry Hill/Uptown; Michigan Hill; Monroe North; and Saint Mary’s Health Care/Cathedral Square in Heartside.
“These are new development projects, real estate successes and redevelopment projects we thought were worth showcasing,” Lyons says. “If you’ve seen downtown Grand Rapids recently you know it’s a hub of real estate development. It looks like a mini Dubai with all the cranes hovering over the city.”
Source: Beverly Lyons, PR Strategies, University of Michigan Urban Land Institute Real Estate Forum
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Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at [email protected].
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