GRAND RAPIDS — A vacant factory in southeast Grand Rapids could soon become a center for entrepreneurs. The building at 1515 Madison Ave. south of Hall Street was a Heinz pickle factory for many years.
The Grand Rapids Center for Community Transformation is leading the $20 million project. Justin Beene is the founder of the center, which is located across the street from the site.
“This building used to be kind of a thriving job creator and wealth generation for this neighborhood,” Beene said.
The project looks to have a variety of uses, including as a restaurant and coworking space.
“We have lots of organizations and nonprofits in Grand Rapids but the normative way that I say people actually move out of poverty is through business, through entrepreneurship, through innovation, through good-paying jobs and so we really hope to be able to facilitate that in this building,” Beene said.
The center for community transformation has already identified about $14 million in funding. It is looking for donations and appropriations to make up the remaining $6 million gap.
“One of the cool things about this project is that we are gonna launch a crowd funding campaign in which we allow residents, primarily targeting residents in this neighborhood, to contribute to the crowdfunding, in which eventually they’ll be able to have ownership over the building and get dividend checks,” Beene said.
Similar hubs have been successful in other cities with entrepreneurs able to make stronger connections.
“Regionally we’ve looked at TechTown in Detroit, we’ve looked at 1871 in Chicago, both have seen the kind of trend of less people wanting an identified long-term kind of workspace. This will have a lot of different options from coworking space to shared space, shared conference rooms to suites that we can build out,” Beene said.
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