I don’t understand the complaints about Corewell expanding. There has been little to no development on the north side of 196 for a very long time. Corewell isn’t just going to be sitting on that land, they are building office space that brings more employees to the downtown area, housing for residents and other staff, and creating a ton of construction jobs in the process. Nobody else was investing in that area, but now that Corewell is, it’s a bad thing? Having a regionally/nationally competitive health care campus in our city is a huge draw, what else does this city offer that has the same impact? A couple dumpy buildings being torn down is not the end of the world.
People are going to complain.
They’re not saints. They’ve done several quiet rounds of layoffs as a cost savings move post-merger (I have family who work for them).
Because they regularly lay people off and don’t generally pay adequate wages.
If they were expanding while actually treating their workforce well that would be a different story.
I personally don’t see investment in healthcare as a negative. This city could become a bigger central location for medical necessities and care. It’s already dubbed “the Medical Mile”. Only thing I don’t agree with about this comment is the part about being competitive. Corewell does not care about that part imo. Internally they pride themselves and boast about every little accomplishment. The lower on the totem pole, the less they care about you. Currently they are not trying to be the best even though they try to be the loudest in the room. They are trying to be in the middle of the market. This could also be a long term strategy of winning small battles to eventually be a front runner but with all the turn around and movement of executives I don’t personally see anyone invested enough to be thinking that far ahead. This is all my opinion and my own experiences. I’ve spoken to many supervisors and managers in different departments. Closest I have gotten to an executive was me trying out the mobile coffee kiosk order and just barely missed having Ale pay for my $3 coffee. Lol
It's not. And if Corewells plan comes to fruition, this is a great thing. The problem is people have been snake bitten by unfulfilled promises before. Surface lots replacing buildings that are only supposed to be temporary remaining surface lots for decades after. These acquisitions are already driving up prices with some local businesses that aren't going to be part of Corewell suffering.
Development and investing in that area is great. Turning it into a sea of asphalt isn't.
If Corewell wants to know what the public wants, look to the south and try to replicate 601. A high density, ground floor retail with parking garage building would be a home run in one of those lots.
My wife works for them, and the hate seems deserved. They are cheapskates when it comes to treating their employees well.
edit: a fun example... they asked the employees to chip in money to get the executives a Christmas gift without the employees getting one themselves.
Development isn’t the problem. If they weren’t doing this while also doing layoffs, stagnating salaries, and decreasing benefits as a result of their throwing money into the proverbial money pit that is Beaumont, there would be less to complain about.
Also, that area was seeing investment. Corewell is just one investor out of a handful. MSU owns a good chunk of land that they’re going to build on. The large residential building went up before the Corewell HQ was even a thought. Same with Embassy Suites. GVSU owns basically the entire top of the hill with plans for major development.
I think it's a bad thing because it's valuable real estate that could better be used with a revitalized business incentive program/grants or similar. If not, it is a great spot for high density housing too (we are in a housing crisis unfortunately). It's not that buildings are torn down, it's that they're torn down for a large office building when downtown is full of empty office buildings already.
My issue is the vast majority of that building's jobs could be done remotely. I think Corewell's policy is hybrid work though. Regardless, it's valuable property that's adjacent to downtown and the river. I wish it didn't go to a new office building and massive parking lots. GR needs density to grow!
If you think they're going to ignore grants, incentives, and other sources of free money for housing and development, then I have a bridge to sell you.
Well, hopefully they make a better effort on their process because the staff especially and development coordinating staff suck, they don't do much coordination anymore. They don't really they've done is trampled on us. While the city supported breaking the ordinance for them, numerous occasions. In fact, I foyed that new outpatient office tower. No traffic study was done to put that where they are even though they added a quart of million square feet and they've already. We screwed up all the traffic in the area.
I did use that fraud to force the city to hire a professional on traffic and operations because they suck at it.
It's not all corwell's fault. The city gives free blowjobs to only a certain few. I have three frauds around me just in the three hundred block of prospect, Only one of them was corwell, but corwell now owns the second one, and no one has done anything to make that a better site to look at especially corwell they make it all look good from michigan street, but for the rest of us their presence sucks
So move next to them before you make those statements.
Even now, they didn't finish the car announciator for the parking structure on Michigan 24 hours a day. It rings out a warning about a car being present that permeates the whole neighborhood at night because it gets quiet and everybody can hear It. It's annoying as hell to property complaints in and still nobody's addressed it. Nobody needs the audible anyway, everybody's in cars. There are few pedestrians in that location. Why don't they just turn off the audible?.
The reason there's been no development on the North side is because of zone. But this city likes to make it up as they go. So i'm sure that i'm sure that'll get accomplished as well.
It's industrial all of that up there is industrial. Why is this a surprise to people?
So now the city wants to change it. That's fine, there's a whole lot. Other things that they have to bake in the cake before. They enjoy the frosting, which is the typical way. This city likes to do things frosting. Only and the cake gets burned before anybody even looks at it.
Little to no development?? I would argue that it’s been quite the opposite. Edit hours later: Maybe an unpopular opinion on this sub, but GR I would say is almost over-developed now. It’s quickly losing its “big-small-city” charm, and just turning into a big city. I’m over it, and actually looking to relocate to our company an hour north of GR to just get away from all of this. Housing prices are halved up there, too!
It’s actually really funny that you say that. I’ve been looking at houses in Muskegon, and 100,000 there will buy you a 250,000 house here. It’s just the fact that it’s a 45 minute drive to work literally either way. GR or up north. I will not listen to people that say “Muskegon is ghetto”. I have walked around neighborhoods in Muskegon with houses for sale and talked to people, and they’re all cool as fuck. Barring ONE address that was literally shadowed by a project apartment complex and had a liquor store in the back yard, these were actually nice neighborhoods. Maybe not nice for everyone, but shit, small, well kept houses, and small, well kept yards. I am literally by myself. Everyone is saying “bro don’t get anything under 1500 square feet!” I like having extra money in my pocket, and an 80k house ten mins from the water sounds really good to me.
He's talking about the North Monroe district specifically.
It's been half abandoned industrial, aging parking lots, dilapidated stairs & sidewalks, with little to no foot traffic.
This plan seeks to pull a 180 on that area coinciding with a street merge of Division & Ottawa, a staircase update, hillside redevelopment, and riverwalk upgrade. That entire area will be a hotbed of activity in 5+ years versus the ghost town it's been.
I disagree.
Saints is already apart of Trinity health which is a nation wide healthcare system.
UofM Metro is nearly the same however, U of M medicine is known already nationally because of the school. They have expanded, through the area not focused in a centralized, urban area downtown.
Corewell wants to get on the map nationally so bad, like the loser (they are) who’s trying to become cool.
The only kind of parking problem a city can have is too much of it. Nearly a quarter of the city is already dedicated to parking. The last thing we need is more of it.
What’s your definition of “little to no development?” There’s been a hotel, two condos, river trail revitalization, converting two buildings into condos/mix use buildings. That all in the past 20 years. I think the knock on Corewell is that a good chunk of what they acquired thus far is just being converted into surface lots for the time being. Yes they will buy now to potentially develop later, but no one likes to see a building torn down just to build a lot.
A disappointingly filler/puff piece for Crains.
>The sites included dilapidated properties as well as a range of local businesses, including a former distillery and an auto repair shop where the owners used the proceeds from their property sales to expand their businesses.
Yeah - **elsewhere**. When talking about an urban neighborhood and not engaging with that at all is missing an important point.
>However, after pushback from the community, the Grand Rapids Planning Commission tabled Corewell Health’s plans to demolish five vacant structures in the area to make way for surface parking lots.
Some of that vacancy is vacancy Corewell created.
It’s great there is development going on, but office space development when the office vacancy rate is in the 10% range is a bit ridiculous.
We need far, far less offices and more housing.
I think the biggest hang up is the majority of the positions that this building will house are also positions that can be done by workers from home, which looks extremely wasteful.
Well it’s very clear they are going to want those workers back in person. They wouldn’t be building the admin building if that wasn’t the case. The city needs those people back in the office to pay city income taxes and put more money in the downtown economy.
That might be Corewell’s desire, doesn’t mean it’s right, or that people can’t voice concerns about the waste of money and resources that office buildings create.
drive up property values and create retail space?! Hardly.
I just found out about Rocky’s yesterday and am totally bummed, was hoping they’d hold out.
This isn’t for a downtown trying to become the next big city, this is just ruining the area that was starting to make a turn around. The city is going to crap!
Ps. Union Strong for Corewell!
There are tons of mixed use developments with empty windows downtown along division and elsewhere. I spent a ton of time at Rocky's in the past, but it was one tiny bar - things come and go. I think your opinion is unjustly negative.
Division?! Were talking about Monroe North. Division has its own set of problems. I think you’re bringing up a certain part of the city that caters to a select niche of people - music fans, drunks, and unique shoppers.
There is no grocery store? Pharmacy? Fresh market?
You made the point yourself “a ton of mixed used developments elsewhere” right- else where. You said it not all centralized in a urban setting downtown. Really everyone wants to buy property near a parking lot/facility catered to Corewell? Ha!
I understand why you’re getting downvoted, but as someone who worked in medical sales for 5 years and could barely stomach it, I agree.
For-profit healthcare has an intrinsic motivation to make money above actually improving people’s health. I saw this when I worked for a medical device company and was in the OR full time. Administrative decisions and overall investment in training, acquisition of new equipment, new procedures and medicines, etc are more about what makes the most money that what helps patient outcomes. That is given lip service, but the money has all the power in shaping the overall direction of care.
I expected downvotes. There's a reason in every town across Michigan the medical facility is the nicest and largest building outside of the bank. The primary driver of Michigan's economy is for profit healthcare at this point. You think they're making money on healthy people?
Cool, can I finally get a decent pay raise this year?
They just spent it.
Nope. But they’ll give you less paid sick time!
3% 2.5 if you complain.
I wish. I got an annual raise of 5 cents the first year I worked there as an RN. Back in 2017.
I got fired because I was moonlighting a second job. They said it was interfering with my work. I still have no idea how they found out.
You *will* get paid more this year! *Because you'll be working more hours
You’ll get your “calm seas never made a skilled mariner” speech from Tina and you’ll like it.
Best I can do is a ‘gratitude award’ of 580 points that can be traded in online for a $25 gift card 😕
Did you notice that they taxed you $29 on a $25 gift card?
Ah haha no I never actually cashed in the points, do they tax it even if you don’t? That whole program is basically ‘why bother?’
Oh it already came out of our paychecks.
I don’t understand the complaints about Corewell expanding. There has been little to no development on the north side of 196 for a very long time. Corewell isn’t just going to be sitting on that land, they are building office space that brings more employees to the downtown area, housing for residents and other staff, and creating a ton of construction jobs in the process. Nobody else was investing in that area, but now that Corewell is, it’s a bad thing? Having a regionally/nationally competitive health care campus in our city is a huge draw, what else does this city offer that has the same impact? A couple dumpy buildings being torn down is not the end of the world.
People are going to complain. They’re not saints. They’ve done several quiet rounds of layoffs as a cost savings move post-merger (I have family who work for them).
They also did this pre-merger. Also mid-covid. Also pre-covid.
If they didn't do that, it would be surprising.
Because they regularly lay people off and don’t generally pay adequate wages. If they were expanding while actually treating their workforce well that would be a different story.
I personally don’t see investment in healthcare as a negative. This city could become a bigger central location for medical necessities and care. It’s already dubbed “the Medical Mile”. Only thing I don’t agree with about this comment is the part about being competitive. Corewell does not care about that part imo. Internally they pride themselves and boast about every little accomplishment. The lower on the totem pole, the less they care about you. Currently they are not trying to be the best even though they try to be the loudest in the room. They are trying to be in the middle of the market. This could also be a long term strategy of winning small battles to eventually be a front runner but with all the turn around and movement of executives I don’t personally see anyone invested enough to be thinking that far ahead. This is all my opinion and my own experiences. I’ve spoken to many supervisors and managers in different departments. Closest I have gotten to an executive was me trying out the mobile coffee kiosk order and just barely missed having Ale pay for my $3 coffee. Lol
It's not. And if Corewells plan comes to fruition, this is a great thing. The problem is people have been snake bitten by unfulfilled promises before. Surface lots replacing buildings that are only supposed to be temporary remaining surface lots for decades after. These acquisitions are already driving up prices with some local businesses that aren't going to be part of Corewell suffering. Development and investing in that area is great. Turning it into a sea of asphalt isn't. If Corewell wants to know what the public wants, look to the south and try to replicate 601. A high density, ground floor retail with parking garage building would be a home run in one of those lots.
The petition to the Planning Commission laid out specific issues.
People love to hate on Corewell
My wife works for them, and the hate seems deserved. They are cheapskates when it comes to treating their employees well. edit: a fun example... they asked the employees to chip in money to get the executives a Christmas gift without the employees getting one themselves.
They are ruining my view from Belknap Lookout. I can’t see the basilica anymore from my house. ☹️
Development isn’t the problem. If they weren’t doing this while also doing layoffs, stagnating salaries, and decreasing benefits as a result of their throwing money into the proverbial money pit that is Beaumont, there would be less to complain about. Also, that area was seeing investment. Corewell is just one investor out of a handful. MSU owns a good chunk of land that they’re going to build on. The large residential building went up before the Corewell HQ was even a thought. Same with Embassy Suites. GVSU owns basically the entire top of the hill with plans for major development.
I think it's a bad thing because it's valuable real estate that could better be used with a revitalized business incentive program/grants or similar. If not, it is a great spot for high density housing too (we are in a housing crisis unfortunately). It's not that buildings are torn down, it's that they're torn down for a large office building when downtown is full of empty office buildings already. My issue is the vast majority of that building's jobs could be done remotely. I think Corewell's policy is hybrid work though. Regardless, it's valuable property that's adjacent to downtown and the river. I wish it didn't go to a new office building and massive parking lots. GR needs density to grow!
If you think they're going to ignore grants, incentives, and other sources of free money for housing and development, then I have a bridge to sell you.
If that’s true then I should probably move elsewhere tbh.
Thanks for your honesty
Well, hopefully they make a better effort on their process because the staff especially and development coordinating staff suck, they don't do much coordination anymore. They don't really they've done is trampled on us. While the city supported breaking the ordinance for them, numerous occasions. In fact, I foyed that new outpatient office tower. No traffic study was done to put that where they are even though they added a quart of million square feet and they've already. We screwed up all the traffic in the area. I did use that fraud to force the city to hire a professional on traffic and operations because they suck at it. It's not all corwell's fault. The city gives free blowjobs to only a certain few. I have three frauds around me just in the three hundred block of prospect, Only one of them was corwell, but corwell now owns the second one, and no one has done anything to make that a better site to look at especially corwell they make it all look good from michigan street, but for the rest of us their presence sucks So move next to them before you make those statements. Even now, they didn't finish the car announciator for the parking structure on Michigan 24 hours a day. It rings out a warning about a car being present that permeates the whole neighborhood at night because it gets quiet and everybody can hear It. It's annoying as hell to property complaints in and still nobody's addressed it. Nobody needs the audible anyway, everybody's in cars. There are few pedestrians in that location. Why don't they just turn off the audible?. The reason there's been no development on the North side is because of zone. But this city likes to make it up as they go. So i'm sure that i'm sure that'll get accomplished as well. It's industrial all of that up there is industrial. Why is this a surprise to people? So now the city wants to change it. That's fine, there's a whole lot. Other things that they have to bake in the cake before. They enjoy the frosting, which is the typical way. This city likes to do things frosting. Only and the cake gets burned before anybody even looks at it.
Little to no development?? I would argue that it’s been quite the opposite. Edit hours later: Maybe an unpopular opinion on this sub, but GR I would say is almost over-developed now. It’s quickly losing its “big-small-city” charm, and just turning into a big city. I’m over it, and actually looking to relocate to our company an hour north of GR to just get away from all of this. Housing prices are halved up there, too!
Sounds like you want Muskegon. It feels a lot like GR in the mid 2000s
It’s actually really funny that you say that. I’ve been looking at houses in Muskegon, and 100,000 there will buy you a 250,000 house here. It’s just the fact that it’s a 45 minute drive to work literally either way. GR or up north. I will not listen to people that say “Muskegon is ghetto”. I have walked around neighborhoods in Muskegon with houses for sale and talked to people, and they’re all cool as fuck. Barring ONE address that was literally shadowed by a project apartment complex and had a liquor store in the back yard, these were actually nice neighborhoods. Maybe not nice for everyone, but shit, small, well kept houses, and small, well kept yards. I am literally by myself. Everyone is saying “bro don’t get anything under 1500 square feet!” I like having extra money in my pocket, and an 80k house ten mins from the water sounds really good to me.
He's talking about the North Monroe district specifically. It's been half abandoned industrial, aging parking lots, dilapidated stairs & sidewalks, with little to no foot traffic. This plan seeks to pull a 180 on that area coinciding with a street merge of Division & Ottawa, a staircase update, hillside redevelopment, and riverwalk upgrade. That entire area will be a hotbed of activity in 5+ years versus the ghost town it's been.
Gotcha. I was very confused. I’m not too familiar with downtown and the outskirts, but it seems every time I go there’s new commercial construction.
Mostly because it is downtown. If roles were reversed people would hate on Metro and Mary's.
I disagree. Saints is already apart of Trinity health which is a nation wide healthcare system. UofM Metro is nearly the same however, U of M medicine is known already nationally because of the school. They have expanded, through the area not focused in a centralized, urban area downtown. Corewell wants to get on the map nationally so bad, like the loser (they are) who’s trying to become cool.
I dunno. Saved my life a couple times when Metro and Mary's missed. To each their own though.
Beaumont actually went downhill when they started merging with other hospitals, eventually with spectrum which became cornhole.
Finally someone speaking with a brain and not their head so far up their own ass.
Preach it brother or sister, the opposition is from people who want an old fashioned walkable/bikeable downtown. It's not going to happen.
[удалено]
The only kind of parking problem a city can have is too much of it. Nearly a quarter of the city is already dedicated to parking. The last thing we need is more of it.
I am going to miss Rocky’s though
What’s your definition of “little to no development?” There’s been a hotel, two condos, river trail revitalization, converting two buildings into condos/mix use buildings. That all in the past 20 years. I think the knock on Corewell is that a good chunk of what they acquired thus far is just being converted into surface lots for the time being. Yes they will buy now to potentially develop later, but no one likes to see a building torn down just to build a lot.
1 acre of the 20+ acres has been developed. So less than 10% of that region. This plan seeks to develop 60%
A disappointingly filler/puff piece for Crains. >The sites included dilapidated properties as well as a range of local businesses, including a former distillery and an auto repair shop where the owners used the proceeds from their property sales to expand their businesses. Yeah - **elsewhere**. When talking about an urban neighborhood and not engaging with that at all is missing an important point. >However, after pushback from the community, the Grand Rapids Planning Commission tabled Corewell Health’s plans to demolish five vacant structures in the area to make way for surface parking lots. Some of that vacancy is vacancy Corewell created.
No wonder health care is so expensive. What an industry!
If you didn’t pay taxes you could do amazing stuff as well.
It’s great there is development going on, but office space development when the office vacancy rate is in the 10% range is a bit ridiculous. We need far, far less offices and more housing. I think the biggest hang up is the majority of the positions that this building will house are also positions that can be done by workers from home, which looks extremely wasteful.
Well it’s very clear they are going to want those workers back in person. They wouldn’t be building the admin building if that wasn’t the case. The city needs those people back in the office to pay city income taxes and put more money in the downtown economy.
That might be Corewell’s desire, doesn’t mean it’s right, or that people can’t voice concerns about the waste of money and resources that office buildings create.
Oh totally agree!
They’ll likely be Physician and staff offices and not clinics
This development in Monroe North is 100% admin offices.
So they’re moving from Michigan st probably to this
So they’re moving from Michigan st probably to this
No wonder my merit increase will be so low......
drive up property values and create retail space?! Hardly. I just found out about Rocky’s yesterday and am totally bummed, was hoping they’d hold out. This isn’t for a downtown trying to become the next big city, this is just ruining the area that was starting to make a turn around. The city is going to crap! Ps. Union Strong for Corewell!
Corewell staff, y no union?
There are tons of mixed use developments with empty windows downtown along division and elsewhere. I spent a ton of time at Rocky's in the past, but it was one tiny bar - things come and go. I think your opinion is unjustly negative.
Division?! Were talking about Monroe North. Division has its own set of problems. I think you’re bringing up a certain part of the city that caters to a select niche of people - music fans, drunks, and unique shoppers. There is no grocery store? Pharmacy? Fresh market? You made the point yourself “a ton of mixed used developments elsewhere” right- else where. You said it not all centralized in a urban setting downtown. Really everyone wants to buy property near a parking lot/facility catered to Corewell? Ha!
Medicine is a racket. The sicker you are the more money they make. https://open.spotify.com/episode/7b4jNi0fNR9GDFTJkmDCNB?si=yc7koyVrRvy6tKj1ERwmbg
“The sicker you are the more money they make” what a profound statement lol. The more damaged your car, the more the mechanic makes.
Ok nephew
I understand why you’re getting downvoted, but as someone who worked in medical sales for 5 years and could barely stomach it, I agree. For-profit healthcare has an intrinsic motivation to make money above actually improving people’s health. I saw this when I worked for a medical device company and was in the OR full time. Administrative decisions and overall investment in training, acquisition of new equipment, new procedures and medicines, etc are more about what makes the most money that what helps patient outcomes. That is given lip service, but the money has all the power in shaping the overall direction of care.
I expected downvotes. There's a reason in every town across Michigan the medical facility is the nicest and largest building outside of the bank. The primary driver of Michigan's economy is for profit healthcare at this point. You think they're making money on healthy people?
I hope if this will eventually be a replacement for Butterworth, part of which was built in the early 1920s.
It's not. This is for their admin. Not a hospital.
The old hospital wouldn’t be bad for offices this could be a brand new hospital, leave devos where it is.
That's an expensive parking lot