By Joanne Bailey-Boorsma
Dan Burrill admitted that at first, he didn’t think he was going to like all this retail and all the traffic.
“I love it,” said the Wyoming City councilmember at a recent groundbreaking ceremony for a new shoping center in the Metro Health Village. “I love the closeness of everything. I love being able to go to Family Fare and pick up a gallon of ice cream every time I get the urge to mix myself a smoothie or a sundae.”
But mostly, Burrill, who lives in the panhandle area, said he enjoys the walkability of the Metro Health Village community.
Walkability has been a key aspect for the development of the Metro Health Village, which is the first LEED certified medical campus in the United States, according to Ryan Granger, project manager for the Wyoming-based Granger Group.
Granger credits his dad, Gary Ganger, for having the vision 15 years ago to partner with the hospital to create a healthy, walkable community and Master Planner James Sharba, who is with a Granger subsidiary SpaceWerks, for bringing “a creative approach to master planning to the remainder of the development.
“The intent is to create walkability so we are going to be creating more dense areas essentially to park more people and then create that walkability approach to couple with the health and wellness of the sustainability approach of the development.”
This past Monday, Granger Group broke ground on the first of several new developments over the next 12 months — a new $3.5 million shopping center in the front of the Metro Health Village, near the waterfall entrance off of Health Drive. The center, which faces Byron Center Avenue, is just south from the Granger Group shopping area that has Starbucks and Great Clips. The general contractor is Caledonia’s FCC Construction, which just completed the ReMax offices located across the street of Byron Center Avenue near Monelli’s. Ann Arbor-based OX Studio is the architect.
The new Village Life Marketplace project, which is expected to take about 10 months to complete, is a mixed use development with 11,000 square feet on both floors. The bottom floor will have several retail tenants that include a national TexMex chain, a sub shop and a place that offers smoothies with the top floor to be the home of the Granger Group corporate offices with an additional 2,500 square feet of available office space.
The development is part of the overall concept of offering healthy lifestyle options and creating a sense of community within the Metro Village Health.
“As we have seen 2008 bring its struggles with the housing crash and the market crash, what we are seeing now is the emergence of micro markets or micro economies.” Granger said. “RiverTown Crossings is a wonderful place for the big box retailers and we also have Tanger Outlets, but what we have here is a very unique approach.
“We are kind of in the middle between Tanger and RiverTown Crossings and what this will bring is an opportunity to bring slightly elevated users maybe retailers or clothiers that are looking for a very niche market.”
Granger estimated that Granger Group has about 16 acres in the Metro Health Village to develop, which, according to press matierals, are designed to inspire healthier lifestyles.
“We are excited to participate in some living options as well that will bring a closer community feel that once they live on campus here they have all their needs meet with a grocery store, with Starbucks, with all these different needs meet through the partnerships we create through retail options,” Granger said.
