Corewell Health Monroe North parking lot shuffle still a no-go

Yahoo

14-03-2025

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Corewell Health's vision for its campus in the Monroe North neighborhood in Grand Rapids took a hit Thursday when the Grand Rapids City Planning Commission tabled approval to build more surface parking nearby.
Corewell Health wants to pull off a bit of a parking lot shuffle over the next few years at its Corewell Health Place campus. On Thursday, it campaigned the Grand Rapids Planning Commission to get the process started, but commission members weren't sure it was necessary to start now.
The health care system giant's idea begins with the proposed development of a new residential tower on Ottawa Avenue. If that tower goes up, Corewell's surface parking that's there now would be gone. The hiccup is that Corewell hasn't quite finalized plans for the tower development.
'The resident and fellow housing building is still working through design, so it has a little bit of a longer runway for us,' Rodney VanderZand, Corewell Health's director of planning and design, said.
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Regardless, Corewell is asking for special land use permission to bulldoze a few empty buildings on its land across the street from the proposed tower, adjacent to the Corewell Health Place campus. It wants to build a 39-spot surface parking lot there to offset the loss of spaces if it builds the tower.
'We do spill over into the site, into the 166 spaces where the residential housing project is going to go. I can't speak to the frequency. We just as of first week of January had our parking control installed,' VanderZand said.
The committee wasn't sold.
'If it was going to be allowed, I'm not sure why it would be allowed before the residential housing existed,' said commission member Brian Swem said.
''We're not sure if we need it. We're not sure if there is a different mode of transportation plan. We're not sure of much.' I almost forgot my last name,' commission member Lawrence Williams said.
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Community feedback showed people like other things about the neighborhood in question: walking the river, playing in parks and participating in community engagement events.
'I realized that all these things are in locations that were parking lots. I invite our commission to maybe skip the parking lot phase and go to the community building and placemaking things,' one commenter said.
'The Monroe North plan specifies a pedestrian priority. The plan prioritizes access to the river… It also encouraged a 21st century mobility strategy, the use of public transportation. And I look at this map showing what is dedicated to parking — not mixed use, parking — and ask, 'Is that what we are building?'' another commenter said.
Thursday's vote marked the second time at least parts of Corewell's parking proposal were tabled — the planning commission also .
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