This past week, both the City of Holland and Holland Charter Township reviewed and unanimously approved the region’s plans to create a SmartZone district aimed at creating and growing technology-based companies and furthering entrepreneurial support.

Franklin Partners LLC, a Naperville, Ill.-based property investment firm with two other central business district office holdings, has entered into a contract with the option to acquire the Keeler Building at 56 North Division Ave., MiBiz has learned.

Less than two years after launching in Grand Rapids, ELK Brewing LLC now plans to open a second microbrewery and restaurant in Plainfield Charter Township’s Comstock Park district, MiBiz has learned.

The report notes that the Grand Rapids-Wyoming Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) “continues to exhibit some of the strongest economic and multifamily fundamentals of any metro in the entire country.”

Grand Rapids-based office technology dealer Applied Imaging has acquired a Cascade Township office building for its new corporate headquarters.

Bartenders at Rockford Brewing Company Inc. have poured more pints of craft beer than expected in the company’s three years of operation. With production at its taproom and brewhouse in Rockford maxed out at 800 barrels of beer annually, co-founder Seth Rivard said the craft brewery will need to look outside of its existing facility to add capacity.

With state tax changes secured, Switch Communications Group LLC now turns its attention to the decade-long buildout of its $5 billion cloud-based data center in southern Kent County.

With developers facing a series of complications in creating a sustainable housing market in downtown Muskegon, city government decided to take the rare move and jump into the business of commercial real estate development.

The Washington, D.C.-based U.S. Women’s Chamber of Commerce remains focused on advocating for policies beneficial to the country’s growing number of female entrepreneurs and small business owners. According to CEO Margot Dorfman, there’s still a great disparity in terms of access to capital and ability to procure federal government contracts for female entrepreneurs.