Downtown Grand Rapids Inc. Planning Manager Tim Kelly emails a weekly GR Forward update to the project Steering Committee. Here's this week's communication:

Greetings Downtown Plan Steering Committee and Community Partners:

I hope you are finishing up another great week and enjoying the first couple days of Spring. This week’s email is a bit lighter than previous versions, but I do want to share a couple of things with you.

Updates

First, as noted last week, our consultant team will be in town April 1 – April 4. In addition to attending our first Steering Committee meeting on Thursday, April 3, they will also be conducting interviews with a variety of stakeholders and doing a full immersion in Downtown to gather a variety of data. Additional details on the Steering Committee meeting, including a location and a draft agenda will be provided next week.

Resources

Second, this week Forbes posted an article on why downtown development may be more affordable than the suburbs: http://www.forbes.com/sites/citi/2014/03/14/why-downtown-development-may-be-more-affordable-than-the-suburbs/.

The article talks about the difference in costs on a per acre basis between downtown and the suburbs, as well as the enhanced tax revenues available to communities that invest downtown. While no two communities are the same, this is a great reminder of the competitive advantage that downtowns provide not only to investors, but also to residents and local governments.

As always, if you have any question related to the Downtown Plan please let me know. Also, if you come across some interesting city reads during the week you would like to share with the group, feel free to send them my way.

Thanks again for your partnership and interest in this important endeavor.

Have a great weekend,