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Muskegon's
Electric Future - 'Edison Landing' Promises Innovations
on the Waterfront
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December
22, 2002
The Muskegon Chronicle
By Dave Alexander
The new name of the Muskegon SmartZone high-tech business
park conjures up a genius inventor in his workshop creating
a new energy device that could change the world.
At the same time, it says waterfront.
The Muskegon Lakeshore SmartZone on the former Teledyne
factory site will now be known as "Edison Landing."
The $50 million mixed-use business park on Muskegon
Lake was being called "The Lakefront." But
with Grand Valley State University's inventive energy
research center being the heart of the park's technology,
a new name was needed, officials said.
"The Lakefront was a generic name," said Muskegon
attorney Chris Kelley, spokesman for Lakefront Development
LLC. "This has the energy theme. Edison Landing
gives it an identity of intelligence, innovation and
energy. It makes it unique."
The new name came from a SmartZone advisory board with
the help of Fluid - a Muskegon-area public relations
firm.
City leaders are hoping the Edison Landing project -
with its combination of research, business, retails
and residential developments - will spark a rebirth
of downtown Muskegon. SmartZones are state-designated
high-tech business parks that have certain property-tax
financing advantages the city of Muskegon has used to
help fund the GVSU energy research center.
The SmartZone has taken on new life since the GVSU energy
center groundbreaking this fall. Of the 16 lots available
in Edison Landing, nine have been "sold" with
at least purchase agreements signed. Several other lots
are at various points of negotiations, working toward
a purchase agreement, Kelley said.
"I think it is very impressive that just over 50
percent of the lots are sold and the developers have
just gotten the property under their control,"
said Todd Battle, who was instrumental in gaining the
SmartZone designation at executive director of Muskegon
Area First. "Pieces of this project are starting
to come together."
Lakefront Development has a signed purchase agreement
with a yet-to-be-announced condominium developer for
two lots on the northwest portion of the property that
once was the Teledyne Continental Motors factory site.
Already announced were the two interior lots set aside
for the GVSU alternative energy research center and
a proposed fuel-cell generating plant, a law office
building for Parmenter O'Toole and four lots that Gillespie
Development of East Lansing has for a residential-commercial
project.
The extension of Shoreline Drive finally has gone out
to bid with a construction contract expected to be negotiated
after the first of the year. Road construction should
start in the spring, Muskegon city officials have said.
Meanwhile, site work has begun on the GVSU energy research
center building and initial work for the streets and
utilities is under way by Jackson-Merkey Contractors
of Muskegon. Actual building construction - outside
of the university research center - will not begin until
this summer when road construction is under way, officials
predicted. Kelley said Gillespie Development really
sparked the private-sector momentum on Edison Landing.
Gillespie became interested in the business park even
before GVSU, Lakefront Development and the city of Muskegon
came to agreement this fall on the financing for the
energy center building.
Pat Gillespie, who heads the apartment complex development
and management company, toured Muskegon County with
commercial real estate agents looking for opportunities.
"Pat Gillespie was the first guy from out of town
that was well established and saw the wisdom of the
SmartZone," Kelley said. For Gillespie, the new
Edison Landing was an intriguing opportunity, he said.
Gillespie has taken the first four lots along the entrance
to Edison Landing off the new Shoreline Drive and is
proposing to create what could become the "downtown"
of the development.
Storefronts with a total of 32,000 square feet will
be on the first level of Gillespie's proposed three-story
buildings along Shoreline Drive and the Edison Landing
entrance. Gillespie Development is working to secure
leases from restaurants, pubs, financial institutions,
florists, ice cream shops, health clubs, cafes and those
needing small office spaces.
Above the commercial space would be 40 two-level, loft-style
apartments. These are the type of upscale living spaces
many of the young professionals working within the Edison
Landing business park would seek, Gillespie said.
The Gillespie buildings would provide an "urban"
feel to the development where work and play, shopping
and services would be a convenient walk for tenants
of the apartments. Residential rents would be from $700
to $900 a month for the one- and two-bedroom units,
which will offer some lake views.
"It's going to be pretty hot," Gillespie said.
"I don't need to be (directly) on the lakefront.
What I need is a high traffic count for the retailers."
Traffic planners anticipate that once Shoreline Drive
is completed and becomes the U.S. 31 business route
through Muskegon, 22,000 vehicles a day will drive by
Edison Landing.
Shoreline Drive is critical for the development of Edison
Landing to proceed, both Kelley and Gillespie said.
"I am very much road dependent," Gillespie
said.
For Kelley and Lakefront Development - a partnership
of many of the attorneys in the Parmenter O'Toole law
firm - the job now is to lock up agreements on the remaining
lots in Edison Landing.
Lakefront Development has hired Encore Properties of
Grand Rapids to market and negotiate property transactions
for Edison Landing.
FAXBOX: What's in a name?
Edison Landing: Developers hope the new name for the
Muskegon Lakeshore SmartZone, Edison Landing, will conjure
up visions of development of a new energy device that
could change the world and at the same time say waterfront.
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Printable Version |
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“On
August 11, 2001, we celebrated 50 years in Western Michigan.
You don’t do that without excellent relationships
with everybody.”
Mike Pepper,
General Manager
Howmet Corporation
an Alcoa Business |
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