12/13/2006

Editorial

Commons, region benefit from common-sense plan

Just over three years ago work began on what many thought was an impossible job — transforming the massive Grand Traverse Commons into a commercial, retail and residential center.

There wasn't much hoopla then and there hasn't been a lot since then. Developer Ray Minervini approached the job in the only way he thought possible — "One bite at a time,” as he put it — and he's still at it. His track record so far has far surpassed what a lot of people thought possible.

By this spring, about half of Building 50, the hospital's former main administration building, will be renovated, encompassing around 200,000 square feet of new development.

Also this spring time Minervini, a Dallas-based developer and a Wisconsin hotel management firm hope to begin work on a proposed 80-room "boutique” hotel/inn that will include a restaurant, bar and banquet room facilities in two century-old "cottages” on the Commons campus. They hope to open the inn sometime in 2008.

Right now, work is continuing on a small winery and a local bakery.

From 2003 to now, work has included a 45,000-square-foot section of Building 50 known as Southview, and 25,000 square feet in Cottage 20.

Southview features three floors of commercial space and two floors of residential units, Cottage 20 has two floors of each. The area is completely sold or leased.

Work is now under way on another 100,000 square feet of Building 50 that will be home to what Minervini calls the "Mercato,” or marketplace, phase of the development.

A number of speciality retail shops will line an interior walkway that connects the south end of the building to the businesses in the Village Center part to the north. There will be two floors of commercial development and three floors of residential. Occupancy is to start by the end of the year.

The overall mix at the Commons now includes a restaurant, coffee shop, engineering firm, a weekly newspaper, Minervini's development and construction companies and several professional offices. About 300 workers are employed there so far, and Minervini says residential condos are bought up as soon as they're available.

It has been a remarkable turnaround helped in no small part by the Renaissance Zone designation the project got early on, which waives business and property taxes for businesses and state income tax for residents.

But it is mostly a tribute to common sense and Minervini's step-by-step, supply-and-demand approach. It has worked, and that's been a good thing for the Commons and the region as a whole.