MOBL NOBL Press Article

Belknap Lookout group hopes to boost 'walkability'
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
By Jim Harger
The Grand Rapids Press

GRAND RAPIDS -- Residents of Belknap Lookout are in the catbird seat as they perch on the hilltop overlooking the expanding Michigan Street medical complex and the resurgent North Monroe Business District.

But getting to the jobs these projects promise is a challenge for a neighborhood that wants to promote itself as being "walkable."

To the south, Int. 196 created a chasm that is spanned by three street crossings, which are not pedestrian-friendly.

To the west, there's a steep, overgrown hill leading to North Division Avenue, accessible by four crumbling stairways built in the 1930s. Only one of them is usable.

"The whole idea of walkability is a key issue for us," said Stephen Faber, a Belknap Lookout resident and neighborhood organizer.

"Our neighborhood has a history of working down here and living up there."

That's still true to some extent. More than 12.5 percent of the neighborhood's residents walk to work, far higher than the rest of the city, where 5.5 percent walk to work, Faber said. For all of Kent County, only 3 percent of residents walk to work.

Hoping to find new ideas to improve walkability, Faber and the Neighbors of Belknap Lookout (NOBL) organized a two-day brainstorming session called MOBL NOBL. After Tuesday's workshop was canceled due to a power outage, it was rescheduled for Aug. 2 and 3.

According to NOBL leaders, this is a time of opportunity and crisis. The opportunities are obvious: new jobs and housing are springing up all around.

Hundreds of millions are being invested along the Michigan Street Hill, with construction of a new cancer center, a new children's hospital, three new medical towers, an expansion of the Van Andel Institute, a new Grand Valley State University classroom building and possibly, Michigan State University's medical school.

To the west, old factories have been converted to offices, trendy bars and restaurants. Moch International is building a 118-unit condominium project. The sprawling Boardwalk apartment complex is being converted to condominiums.

Atop the Lookout, housing prices have soared in recent years and new housing is on the drawing board. Faber is a member of a co-housing group planning to take advantage of a "Neighborhood Enterprise Zone" that offers tax breaks for new homes and housing rehabilitation projects.

Andrew Guy, a member of the workshop's steering committee, said the Michigan Department of Transportation also has presented them with opportunities to enhance walkability.

Next year, MDOT will rebuild the Michigan Street bridge over North Division Avenue and begin redesigning the three bridges that cross Int. 196.

"The money is going to be spent to rebuild them, so let's rebuild them the right way," Guy said. That means designing bridges with sidewalks and crosswalks that don't treat pedestrians as afterthoughts. So far, MDOT officials have been "very open and willing to listen," Guy said.

But for all of the opportunities, neighborhood leaders say they also need to deal with threats posed by the expansion projects.

If MDOT follows through with plans to build an off-ramp from westbound Int. 196 to northbound Division Avenue, it could block the base of the last usable staircase, Guy said.

As the Michigan Street Hill becomes home to more medical and education facilities, retailers that traditionally served the neighborhood are being squeezed out.

It's an issue that has hurt the neighborhood since 1963, when Int. 196 cut off all but three of the side streets that connected to Michigan Street.

Aside from a Rite-Aid pharmacy on Michigan Street and a couple of delis, there is no place to walk and buy groceries, Faber said. If Belknap Lookout is to become a walkable neighborhood where owning a car is unnecessary, that kind of accessible shopping needs to return.

Helen Lehman of the MOBL NOBL steering committee, said the August workshop is aimed at remedying some of those losses the neighborhood incurred after the freeway was built.

"Talking to the older neighbors, one of the things they said was, 'There wasn't a thing you could do about it.' I think this does give people a way to do something about it."