GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — A Grand Rapids business owner is investing nearly a million dollars into a century-old building on the city's westside.
The downtown architecture firm owner is moving his business into the second floor of the Shade Shop building on Leonard Street.
"It's a legacy structure for sure," Zach Verhulst, Pure Architects CEO and founder, says.
The building on 422 Leonard Street Northwest has been there since 1910, and Verhulst is breathing new life into the building.
"Reusing buildings is one of the more sustainable things you can do," he says.
Verhulst is moving his firm into the building's second floor after buying the property for $1.1 million.
The Shade Shop on the first floor and the two other businesses on the third floor will stay there. On top of completely redoing the empty second floor, he's upgrading the structure with nearly a million dollars in renovations.
"I think a huge chunk of that is trying to bring bring this building up into the modern day," Verhulst says. "We have to add an elevator. There's no air conditioning in the whole building... We're really hoping to design this for us. [It'll] be a pretty raw space, a lot of plywood and celebrate the character and kind of richness of what's here. But we definitely want to add bathrooms and a big kitchen and spaces for us to be together and do good work."
For Verhulst, he's returning to his roots.
"The west side was extremely different growing up," he says.
Verhulst grew up in the area, and he hopes to see the west side continue to grow.
"It's going to take people that want to be here for a long time and invest in and contribute to that change," he says. "Hopefully, we start to build really long-standing relationships with people that own property and can contribute to great architecture up and down the street."
Multiple new businesses have popped up on Leonard Street in the last few years, like Furn on Leonard and Alt City NA Bottles and Beer.
"This is another layer of what's going on in a really growing part of the city.
Richard App, retail retention attraction specialist for the city, wants to strengthen the restaurants in the area and bring in more retailers.
"[In] that neighborhood, the bones we have are there, we just have to continue to move forward with that," he says.
App adds that the firm's move into this building fills one of the multiple office vacancies in town.
"It's great to see the new coming in, but the tradition stay," he says.
Renovations of this building's second floor could be complete by the end of this fall.
"We came here to be part of the neighborhood," Verhulst says.
Pure Architects is working with engineering firm Ignite Design and contractor Wolverine Building Group on this project.
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