February 19 HBA Breakfast Club recap
This month’s meeting featured new Heartside businesses big and small, HBA board candidates for 2025 — and info about big changes…
This month’s meeting featured new Heartside businesses big and small, HBA board candidates for 2025 — and info about big changes north of Fulton.
Bamboo to bloom in Heartside. After a four-year vacancy, the former UICA building at 2 Fulton St. is set to become the first Western Michigan location for Bamboo working spaces. CEO Amanda Lewan came in from Detroit to describe how her plans will honor the building’s artistic heritage while making a home for a new wave of customers and events.
Amanda described how Bamboo started about 10 years ago in downtown Detroit as a collaboration among business owners who wanted co-working space. (The company has subsequently expanded to Royal Oak and Ann Arbor, MI.)
If everything goes as planned, modifications to the building should start in April and run about six months. (She hopes to open the ground floor around September for ArtPrize and Tech Week.) While Bamboo will add more office spaces to 2 Fulton (primarily to create an atrium on the fourth and fifth floors), it plans to maintain purpose-built areas for the arts, including the movie theater and event spaces. “Bringing people back to building will boost businesses,” Amanda said, “and bring energy to the building, the space and the community.”
She predicted that energy boost will include:
- New commuters to the neighborhood. “Our other locations are about 25,000 square feet each and home to about 400 to 500 people. This location is double the space.”
- New retail space. Bamboo is looking to keep the ground-floor window area open for pop-ups.
- New jobs. Bamboo will hire staff to manage its co-working and events spaces. Amanda plans to host events that focus on arts, business, community and wellness — “but we try to hear what the community wants.”
- New partners. A local nonprofit has already agreed to lease the second floor, and Bamboo is working with The Right Place to source some tenant partnerships starting in April or May.
Bamboo offers different membership tiers for co-working and private offices; members can use all its locations.
NIDO joins Heartside’s arts and fashion district. Meanwhile at 315 & 317 Division Ave S, a new “art-centric consignment store” is soft-launching this week in the space vacated when OTONO moved its vintage shop six blocks north to 25 Division Ave. S.
According to co-owner Rico Padilla, NIDO (Spanish for “nest”) will sell affordable artworks; clothes; and physical media like DVDS AND vinyl. The team (a group of friends who also founded Aves Films) plan events like vinyl nights and live bands, as well as “social experiments” like a rock-paper-scissors tournament.
Local artist Jasmine Bruce will direct NIDO’s artist space, called the Wings Program. “We’ll help artists create an online platform,” Rico said. “Aves can help them with story-telling, including photos and video. He said the team hopes to add 10 artists to its exhibition space in the first six months.
Rico thanked other neighborhood businesses for the welcome NIDO has received. “Cocoon Art Space and August Connection have been so helpful,” he exclaimed, “as well as Emmanuel and Alana at OTONO.”
Caution: Construction ahead! They shouldn’t impact Heartside businesses as directly as last year’s work at the intersection of Fulton Street and Division Avenue — but street improvements will shut down Division north of Fulton for most of 2025, and we want to be responsive to any disruption in visitor traffic.
Richard App covered details of the project, many of which are summarized on this city webpage.
- Construction is scheduled to run from March 3 to November.
- The intersection of Monroe Center and South Division will remain open. (The HBA will ensure there’s wayfinding to encourage visitor traffic along the route.)
- Enhancements to NoDIV will include widening the sidewalks and raising bike lanes; adding trees; and replacing the water main and sewer system.
The City of Grand Rapids is hosting “virtual construction preparation meetings” Wednesday, Feb. 6. The business-focused meeting will run 2-3pm. To register, scan the QR code to the left.
Vote for your 2025 board at March Breakfast Club! Ahead of the March 19 vote, we heard from new and returning HBA board candidates and heard about the board’s goals for neighborhood activations, sponsorship and membership drives, infrastructure enhancements, and a rebrand of Heartside’s visual identity throughout the neighborhood.
New board candidates
- Brandon Copeland, Grammotones
- Victoria Keenan, GR Parks & Recreation
- Molly Ketchum, The Arts Marketplace
Returning board candidates
- Matthew Rothenberg, ArtRat Gallery (President)
- Josie Garcia, Cocoon Art Space (Vice President)
- Danielle Rowland, State Farm (Treasurer)
- Tammy Karas, United Bank (Secretary)
- Rock Dandeneau, Taste Buds – Kitchen Connects
- Kaitlynn Fitzpatrick, Second Vibess
- Ben Rambadt, TowerPinkster
- Kailey Smith-Barth, ArtPrize
… And much more! In other Breakfast Club news, Fancy Real Estate is partnering with Dwelling Place to fill commercial vacancies along SoDIV … The HBA announced that Founders Brewery has joined companies like Acrisure and Affordable Limousine as a sponsor … Cocoon’s annual I 💙Recycled Art exhibition opens First Friday, March 7, with additional exhibitions at ArtRat and The Arts Marketplace … TowerPinkster announced that it has acquired a 25-person engineering firm and moved them into TowerPinkster’s offices at Fulton and Division … OTONO is planning to open its long-awaited full-service café … Studio Park has welcomed a storefront location for Niksi Home and Floral as well as a “C Premium” auditorium for its Celebration Cinema location.
