By Joanne Bailey-Boorsma
joanne@wktv.org

As a YMCA community collaboration director Aly Rickman often talks to residents along Division Avenue about the importance of living healthier and having an active lifestyle by purchasing more fruits and vegetables and walking their community.

“Many times the residents say it’s too difficult because of the traffic and safety issues along Division,” Rickman said.

It was for that reason that Rickman along with several Division Avenue residents and business owners attended a series of Silver Line Transit Oriented Development Study open houses Thursday and Friday (Feb. 27 and 28) that took place at several Division Avenue business such as Wei Wei Palace, New Beginnings, Brann’s Steakhouse, and Supermercado Mexico.

“I think it is very important to get the community together to talk about what their vision is for Division,” sad Javier Olvera, President and Co-Owner of Olvera Enterprises, which owns Supermercado Mexico. For Olvera, he said he would love to see more green space with trees and plants along Division Avenue to help make the area a more welcoming place.

Getting input from the people who live and work along Division Avenue is an important element to the study, said Bill Kirk, a business affairs specialist for The Rapid. When the Silver Line was launched in 2014, it was looked at as a catalyst for potential economic ground development leading into the downtown area. The line runs along Division Avenue from 60th Street in Cutlerville to the Medical Mile/Grand Rapids Community College loop. 

“The economic investment did not come,” Kirk said, adding that the Silver Line concept, which was the first Bus Rapid Transit system in the state of Michigan, was taken from other cities, such a Cleveland, which had seen economic growth along its Bus Rapid Transit system. 

A Federal Transportation Administration grant of about $900,000 along with $25,000 contributions each from the cities of Grand Rapids, Kentwood, and Wyoming, all of which have parts of Division Avenue within their boundaries, are being used to fund a study to find ways to improve affordable housing options, businesses opportunities, and neighborhood conditions in the corridor without losing much of the diversity that is part of Division Avenue, Kirk said. 

The study is utilizing two major components: data on land usage and codes and input from residents and business leaders on what they would like to see along the Division Avenue corridor. The Feb. 27 and 28 meetings were the start of the community conversations, Kirk said.

Those who came to the open house had the opportunity to take a South Division Corridor Identity Survey to help determine how residents view the corridor. They also could make a Design Workshop Survey which asked a series of questions on what people would like to see along the corridor. 

“It made sense to start looking along the corridor because each of the three cities, Grand Rapids, Wyoming and Kentwood, were in various stages of reviewing their master plans,” said City of Wyoming City Planner Nicole Hofert. “The City of Kentwood is wrapping up theirs, the City of Grand Rapids has its Southtown plan and us, the City of Wyoming, is working on our master plan.”

Hofert said the City of Wyoming has not addressed the Division corridor in its master plan because of the Silver Line study and that the city will most likely adopt what comes from that study. Grand Rapids also has not included it in its Southtown Corridor Improvement District plan.

To give the community an idea of what some of those improvements could be, the Oklahoma City-based private urban consultants company Team Better Block will be staging a couple of “pop ups” or temporary use of space.

“This could be a pop up shop, a pop up bike trail, a painted bike lane,” said Daniel Sperle, the Division Avenue project manager for Team Better Block. “It will be a test of what the community would like to see and how it would look within the environment.”

Kirk said the team hopes to wrap up the study by the end of the year. For now, the goal is to get as much input from area residents to help complete the study, he said.

Those interested in taking the survey for the Silver Line Transit Oriented Development Study or keep updated on the progress of the study can visit the website silverlinetod.org.