Displaying items by tag: Grand Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce

GRAND RAPIDS — For much of her career, Jacey Ehmann was the only woman in the room. 

GRAND RAPIDS — The Grand Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce has hired a retail retention and attraction specialist to help attract regional and national retailers to the city.

More than a decade ago, Grand Rapids business leaders lobbied hard to block the Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians, known locally as the Gun Lake Tribe, from opening a casino near Wayland. 

Groups like 23 is Enough and MichGO drove the narrative that any casino development south of Grand Rapids would “siphon off” jobs and investment from the city’s then-rebuilding downtown, limiting growth in entertainment options and economic opportunity alike. They cited a study commissioned by the Grand Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce in the early 2000s that estimated $880 million of “economic hemorrhaging” in the surrounding counties if Gun Lake Casino were ever allowed to move forward. 

Looking around downtown Grand Rapids today, it’s hard to find evidence that their worst fears were in any way realized. 

Corey Hart returned to Grand Rapids last September to find that support for entrepreneurship and startup companies had grown well beyond what it was when he left for California a decade earlier.

Talent, housing and infrastructure topped the 2020 priority list for members of the Grand Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce.

The Grand Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce continues to seek out ways to address the persistent talent issues that local companies are facing. Rick Baker, president and CEO of the Grand Rapids Chamber, said the organization is advocating for ways to attract talent at the local and state levels, including by expanding programming in 2020. 

The Grand Rapids Chamber is thrilled to announce the 132nd Annual Meeting on Tuesday, January 28, 2020 at DeVos Place. At the Chamber’s largest event of the year, over 800 attendees will celebrate what was accomplished in the community to “Create Great” in 2019, as well as the work the Chamber executed to support a thriving and prosperous West Michigan for all.

GRAND RAPIDS — Multiple organizations have partnered to assess how Grand Rapids can attract and retain retail across all parts of the city.

Backed by a key small business advocate in Lansing, a bipartisan group of lawmakers have proposed a legislative package to boost state support for companies operating in the space between small startups and larger corporations.

State Sen. Stephanie Chang says granting state driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants is as much of an issue of economics and public health as it is about immigration.