Grand Rapids has been making a lot of lists and countdowns in national publications over the last few years. Just last week, the city of Grand Rapids was featured in a nationally distributed article by The Huffington Post for the character and preservation of historical buildings in the downtown area.
The article discusses several specific buildings from the downtown area, including the Ledyard building, one of the rare, triangular buildings modeled after a famous edifice in New York City. People refer to it as “flatiron” shape. The article discusses how actively the city of Grand Rapids has worked to maintain this piece of architectural history. The author notes that there are different facade colors, different cornices, different window shapes and lintels.
By adding a glass-encased atrium on a major Ottawa street entrance, several buildings seem to melt into one, which covers a good portion of this block of space in the downtown area and houses a wide variety of offices, businesses, and living space. All told, seven buildings were remodeled and refinished to create the area now known as the Ledyard Block. The Ledyard Building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983, ensuring that it won't be torn down without a protracted legal and social process.
Strolling through downtown Grand Rapids and the walkable adjoining neighborhoods is a visually engaging exercise. Not only are there plenty of hip, modern businesses, from clothing and jewelry shops to restaurants, bars, and entertainment venues, there is a healthy dose of original construction, showcasing the history and complexity of this city's urban center. While the Ledyard building's preservation certainly deserves notice, there are many other well-preserved tributes to the city's past as well.
In few places is that attempt at preservation as obvious as the remodeling of the historic Rowe building, which used to serve as a retirement home for many in the greater Grand Rapids area. These days, it is under construction, awaiting completion, whereupon it will become upscale condo units and apartments, right across the street from the MSU medical research facility, which will be built where the old Grand Rapids Press headquarters once stood.
While the article doesn't mention it, the brick-paved section of Wealthy Street on the southeast side, through Eastown, is another beautiful, well-maintained callback to a previous era. On certain days, a cable car offers rides from site to site in the downtown area, including stops at the farmers market and several other popular locations for weekend dalliances.
Truly, Grand Rapids has been fortunate to be managed by city planners and developers who understood, even in the industrial 1970s and 1980s, that maintenance of historical buildings and a city's history is important to the overall character of an area. Residents in the greater Grand Rapids area enjoy a much more beautiful city-scape than other major urban centers as a result of that foresight.
While Michigan, overall, has suffered economically over the last two decades, the Grand Rapids area and West Michigan have maintained a better economy than many other well-populated areas in the state, making it an excellent place to call home or invest in properties. If you are interested in purchasing a home or investment properties in the West Michigan area, get in touch with the professional staff at Pyxis Realty today!