GRAND RAPIDS, MI — Community leaders in Grand Rapids have ambitious plans for the Grand River corridor.
A $45 million plan calls for restoring the city’s namesake rapids by removing several dams from the river. Once that work is done, officials want to invest additional resources to transform a series of public spaces along the river into a hub of activity for bicyclists, kayakers and pedestrians.
But how will those projects be funded and who would be responsible for managing them?
It’s one of the main questions the Grand Rapids Downtown Development Authority wants a pair of consultants to answer.
This week, the DDA approved a motion to enter into negotiations with HR&A Advisors and Kathy Blaha Consulting with the goal of hiring the two firms to perform the study. HR&A Advisors is a real estate and economic development consultant with offices in New York, Dallas, Los Angeles, Raleigh, and Washington, DC. Kathy Blaha Consulting is a Miami Beach-based consultant focusing on parks partnerships.
“It’s time to get going on these projects and determine who’s responsible to do it, to raise the money and build and maintain and activate these assets,” said Andy Guy, chief outcomes officer for Downtown Grand Rapids Inc. (DGRI), which manages the DDA for the city of Grand Rapids.
DGRI staff is expected to negotiate a price for the services of the two firms and bring a contract to the DDA for approval in September.
Guy said the river restoration effort involves numerous partners, ranging from the city of Grand Rapids and Kent County to philanthropic and community groups. He said the study could help lay out a road map for the project to move forward.
He compared the river restoration to other large-scale public projects across the U.S., such as The High Line in New York City and The 606 elevated trail in Chicago. He said that such projects typically are managed or overseen in some manner by an authority made up of public, private and philanthropic partners.
It’s possible that the study being commissioned by DGRI could recommend a similar oversight body for the Grand River corridor, Guy said.
Grand Rapids Whitewater is the nonprofit leading the effort to remove five dams between Sixth and Pearl streets to restore an 18-foot drop in the Grand River's elevation across a 2.2-mile stretch between Leonard Street and Fulton Street. Below the Sixth Street dam, boulder-strewn rapids would be recreated.
Matt Chapman, a project manager for Grand Rapids Whitewater, said the nonprofit is in the process of obtaining the state and federal permits needed to move forward with the project. Work on the $45 million project, which is about 85 percent funded, could start as soon as summer of 2021.
Removing the dams would take several years, after which the goal is to begin work on developing six public sites along the river. How those projects would be funded is unclear.
One obstacle facing the project is the Sea lamprey. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is examining a proposal detailing how Grand Rapids Whitewater intends to prevent the invasive species, whose presence hurts the native fish habitat, from migrating further east once the Sixth Street dam is removed.
A draft environmental impact statement on the river restoration effort being led by the corps is expected to be completed by spring 2020.
