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Grand Rapids Mayor George Hartwell

Following up a trip a year ago to Winston-Salem and Greensboro, N.C., a delegation from Greater Springfield recently visited Grand Rapids, Mich. to see and learn how that community has earned the designation of ‘resurgent city.’ Civic and business leaders there said much of it comes down to private-public partnerships, collaboration between all parties involved in an initiative, and what one official called “coloring waaay outside the lines.”

Don Stypula was searching for some words and phrases to describe downtown Grand Rapids, Mich. in 1977, and wound up borrowing (stealing, actually) a line from … John Denver? “In one of his songs, he said Saturday night in Toledo, Ohio ‘is like being nowhere at all,’” said Stypula, who is currently executive director of the Grand Valley Metro Council (similar to this region’s EDC), but 35 years ago was a news anchor on WOOD radio in Grand Rapids, doing farm reports in the early morning. “Grand Rapids was a lot like Toledo; this city, at that snapshot in time, was nowheresville.” “There was a community college — and there still is — with a relatively small campus, and there were a few law firms, a few accounting firms, a couple of banks, and lots of surface parking lots,” he continued as he resumed his tour from three decades ago. “There was absolutely nothing going on at night. The streets were empty; it was dead.” And then, there was the Pantlind Hotel on the corner of Monroe and Pearl streets, built in 1913 and once a source of pride in the community. “By then, it was a flophouse; it was broken down, dirty … the rates were by the hour, and this was in central downtown in the state’s second-largest city. They were getting ready to close it, to tear it down and make it yet another surface parking lot. But then…” He digressed for a moment, soon to return to a subject that would become laden with irony for the more than three dozen visitors from Greater Springfield who were in Grand Rapids, or GR, as it’s often called, recently as part of the Federal Reserve Bank’s City2City program. The delegation stayed in the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel, formerly the Pantlind, the byproduct of a multi-million-dollar makeover and expansion that became one of several “game-changers,” as Stypula called them, that would eventually lead to Grand Rapids gaining the designation ‘resurgent city’ in the eyes of the Federal Reserve Bank. The Pantlind was saved from the wrecking ball, and the downtown from further retreat, when the mayor at the time, Abe Drasin, approached Richard DeVos and Jay Van Andel, founders of Amway (headquartered just outside the city), about restoring the landmark. This initial meeting would eventually lead to one of many public-private partnerships that would change the face of downtown Grand Rapids and enable the city to reinvent itself and greatly diversify an economy once dominated by furniture and the auto industry and that had the highest concentration of manufacturing jobs in the country, said City Manager Greg Sundstrom. “What we do here — and I don’t really understand it, and I don’t think many people could easily define it — is have community leaders, and this could be institutions or people, pronounce that ‘this is what the community needs to do,’” he explained, “and it’s not uncommon for other parties to hear that and start to follow that lead.” Elaborating, he said this phenomenon could be seen in the development of hospitality-related businesses after construction of a new civic arena downtown; the so-called Medical Mile, a series of health-care-related ventures totaling more than $1.4 billion to date (much more on that later); and even an entertainment complex created in a warehouse only a few blocks from the arena. It’s called the B.O.B., which is short for Big Old Building, a 70,000-square-foot former warehouse built in 1903, which now houses several restaurants and clubs operating under one liquor license, a municipal masterstroke that certainly represented a departure from traditional, or conventional, thinking in City Hall, and thus became a prime example of how city officials have “colored outside the lines” as they have revitalized their community, said Stypula. “I think that project [the B.O.B.] more or less galvanized the mindset of the community and ushered in a new culture for city officials, both the bureaucrats and the elected leaders,” he explained. “It is now routine for them to color waaay outside the lines, no matter what the project or initiative. It gave them the confidence to do that, and it’s happened again repeatedly. Recently, though, came a different kind of opportunity, one they certainly didn’t want, in the form of a response to a January 2011 Newsweek magazine listing of the ‘top 10 dying cities in America.’ Using statistics such as a 2.1% drop in overall population over the previous decade and a 2.2% decline in the under-18 demographic, the magazine put Grand Rapids 10th on that list (Flint, Mich. was ninth, and Detroit was seventh; New Orleans was No. 1). “Dear Ms. Brown: The citizens of Grand Rapids were astounded when you declared our city to be a ‘dying city.’ … Surely Newsweek must be joking. Would a major medical school (Michigan State University School of Human Medicine) move its campus to a dying city? Would a dying city have seen $1.4 billion in downtown construction in the past seven years? Would the first J.W. Marriott in the Midwest have opened (2007) in a dying city? Would the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have awarded its Siemens Award for America’s most sustainable city (2010) to a dying city? “Would a dying city have attracted over 250,000 visitors last year (2010) to the world’s richest art competition, Artprize, which, incidentally, attracted 1,713 artists from around the world and was prominently featured in the nation’s leading newspapers? Would the United Nations University have made a dying city its first U.S. Center for Expertise in Education for Sustainable Development (2004)? Or would 22 universities, colleges, and theological seminaries maintain campuses in a dying city? Would a dying city have more LEED-certified buildings per capita (2009) than any other American city? Or would the citizens of a dying city rank second-highest in the nation for per-capita philanthropic giving? … Why would Good Morning America have featured a dying city just last week? … Ms. Brown, surely you have never been to Grand Rapids!” There was much more from the mayor, who did a lot of things with this bit of prose. He summed up a host of major developments in the city over the past few decades, including many initiatives in education and health care (eds and meds), emergence as a ‘green’ leader (all those LEED buildings), the establishment of a creative economy (Artprize and similar endeavors), and even airtime on network television. Meanwhile, he also hit upon many of the themes the Springfield delegation would hear about repeatedly over the course of its three-day stay: sustainability, philanthropy, and economic diversity. “People have used their resources to take small steps, and even major steps, to improve their piece of the world,” he went on. “And they do it in a fashion that is enormously collaborative. These are some of the most competitive, driven individuals that you would ever want to meet, but the way they compete is different from what I’ve experienced; while they’re competing, they’ll find ways to come together in every economic sector to find common ground.

Community Calendar for Wednesday, Dec. 21, 2011 | Daily Republic

Community Calendar for Wednesday, Dec. 21, 2011 Today

Cordelia Rotary Club  7:15 a.m., Courtyard by Marriott, 1350 Holiday Lane. Info: Nancy Garver at 449-8299.

Tai Chi for Health Classes  9-10 a.m., McBride Center, 91 Town Square Place, Vacaville. Low-impact exercise for students 50 and older. Fee required, preregistration required. Info: 469-6672.

Center For Imaginative Reuse 10,000 Books Benefit Sale  Noon to 6 p.m., 322 Parker St., Vacaville. Proceeds benefit the Park and Recreation Trust. Info: Jim Ball at 301-7030.

Fairfield Host Lions Club  Noon, Courtyard by Marriott, 1350 Holiday Lane. Info: 427-6927.

Geranium City Garden Club  1-4 p.m., Round Table Room, Fairfield Senior Center, 1200 Civic Center Drive. Info: 428-7421.

Widowed Persons Association of California  2 p.m., McBride Center, 91 Town Square Place, Vacaville. “A grief shared is a grief diminished.” Social and recreational opportunities for widowed persons. Info: 448-0666.

Moose Lodge Bingo  5:30 p.m., Fairfield Moose Lodge, 623 Taylor St. Info: 422-3245.

Cribbage Group Meeting  6:30 p.m. Learn and play cribbage with members of the American Cribbage Congress. Info: Jackie Doppelt at 447-7568.

Fairfield Women in Action  6:30 p.m., Jack & Linda’s Country Cafe, 2390 N. Texas St. A nonprofit group, actively supports the community, including Assist-a-Grad scholarships, Adopt-a-Park, domestic violence prevention programs, and education re-entry. Info: 425-1498 or lukeroy@att.net.

“Whip it Up” Cooking Show  6:30 p.m., Matt Garcia Youth Center, 250 Travis Blvd. Learn how to prepare a meal and produce a cooking segment for the PAL TV show. Annual fee. Info: 422-6288.

Twin City Square Dance Club  7:30-9:30 p.m., Suisun City Senior Center, 318 Merganser Drive. Info: 425-4276.

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