GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Julia Petersen and her husband opened Bricks and Minifigs Grand Rapids on Breton Road in 2022.
"We always talked about the dream of having a brick and mortar store someday, and we thought that was probably out of our reach," Petersen said. "But then, we heard about Bricks and Minifigs, which is a franchise, and so that made it possible for us to open the store."
It was a dream borne out of their love for LEGO.
"When we started dating, we started building LEGO together, and we just enjoyed it so much," Petersen said.
Almost a year after opening, however, their dream is facing a challenge after, early Saturday morning, a van rammed into their storefront.
"It was definitely a shock," Petersen said.
"There was a white cargo van and, apparently, witnesses say it was stopped at the light but then accelerated through the light and hit the store, came through the glass in the wall and went all the way up to the support beam at full speed," Petersen said. "The support beam is what stopped the van."
Days later, they're still picking up the pieces.
"Right now, we have damage to the façade," Petersen said. "So, the brick work, we have, obviously, two window panes that were broken, the entire framing of the windows, the support beam was bent. The fire department has said the building is safe for us to be in, but we don't know what that repair is going to look like. And then there's obviously extensive damage to our fixtures or glass cases and a lot of our inventory."
While it was the first since they moved in, Petersen said it isn't the first time this location had been hit in a similar way.
Petersen said the driver in this crash immediately left the scene and there was no theft involved.
Despite the damage, Petersen said she and her husband remain optimistic as they look toward rebuilding.
"We have a lot of fun things planned in the meantime," Petersen said. "So, we're going to do some pop-up shops and some events around town. So, everybody should definitely stay tuned on social media."
"We're hoping to keep connecting people to the LEGO hobby because we love it and we know a lot of Grand Rapids loves it too," Petersen said. "So, we have some ideas we'll be publishing later this week."
Petersen said the landlords for their building are looking into putting barriers outside the store to ensure incidents like this don't continue to happen.
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