Grand Rapids given $1million grant for Urban Indoor/Outdoor public market

The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality has awarded the City of Grand Rapids a $1 million grant to support the redevelopment of an underutilized downtown property into a year-round, indoor-outdoor public market. The grant, funded by the voter-approved Clean Michigan Initiative Brownfield program, will pay to clean up contaminated soils and remove existing dilapidated buildings on the site in the city’s Heartside neighborhood.

“We deeply appreciate the state’s investment in the project and our community,” said City of Grand Rapids Economic Development Director Kara Wood. “The urban market project will support West Michigan’s growing local food movement, create opportunities for entrepreneurship, help stimulate hundreds of new jobs for area residents and serve as a catalyst for additional downtown redevelopment.”

“This funding is a significant boost to the project and will allow our private fundraising effort to focus exclusively on building the market rather than cleaning up the site,” said Jon Nunn, executive director of Grand Action, a not-for-profit organization of civic leaders focused on advancing urban revitalization projects in Grand Rapids. “We are extremely grateful for this contribution.”

Grand Action in March 2010 announced the findings and recommendations of a feasibility study which determined a permanent public market could help catalyze urban revitalization, generate jobs and new economic activity and expand access to fresh foods in downtown Grand Rapids.

The study recommended a mixed-use development concept combining facilities for food production and retailing, farmer produce distribution, tastings, a seasonal outdoor farmers’ market, as well as food and health education. The former Sonneveldt site at the intersection of Ionia Avenue and Wealthy Street, which is owned by the Grand Rapids Downtown Development Authority, was identified as the preferred site based on, among other factors, its high visibility, potential to stimulate new investment and convenient accessibility by car, foot and transit.

The total estimated project development cost is $28 million. The MDEQ grant of $1 million, the maximum amount available to a single project, is based on the proposed project’s ability to achieve such agency goals as the remediation of environmental contamination, leveraging of private investment and promotion of urban redevelopment. The funds enable the clean-up and building removal work to begin this winter on the proposed urban market site.

The MDEQ grant comes in addition to approximately $4.7 million in support committed by the Michigan Economic Growth Authority in November 2011. Grand Action continues to work closely with community partners to identify and pursue additional financing opportunities and develop a proposed construction timeline. If the project raises the necessary funding on a timely basis, the project partners anticipate opening the market for the 2013 season.