David Denton says even though e-commerce is affecting the retail market, he’s expecting another good year for the sector from a real estate development perspective. Denton, vice president of real estate brokerage at DAR Development in Grand Rapids, was recently named to the Midwest Real Estate News Hall of Fame and previously served as president of the Commercial Alliance of Realtors.

Holt-based Moore Trosper Construction Co. has opened an office in Sault Ste. Marie in an effort to work with the local Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians.

The real estate and development arm of Livonia-based Schostak Brothers & Co. has purchased a 950,000-square-foot distribution facility in Grand Rapids.

A proposed headquarters project in Cascade Charter Township could become the home for Acrisure LLC, a Caledonia-based insurance brokerage that’s been growing rapidly through an ambitious M&A strategy. 

Two lakeshore communities are rethinking how former industrial sites will play a role in future development along their waterfronts. 

A $44 million hotel development in downtown Kalamazoo has secured project funding from the state of Michigan.

A project to construct townhomes in the city’s Michigan Oaks neighborhood gained financial support from the state on Tuesday.

Hotel development in West Michigan remains on a torrid pace for 2019. Developers have plans to add more than 800 new rooms this year, with developments popping up in downtown Grand Rapids and in suburban areas surrounding the city. At the same time, although annual hotel occupancy dipped slightly for 2018, hotel revenue actually increased, a reflection of record room bookings.

Trillium Ventures MSV LLC, a Grand Rapids-based multifamily investment and property management firm, has acquired two Kalamazoo apartment complexes.

Grocery chain operator and food distributor SpartanNash Co. plans to open a small-format Forest Hills Foods store in the Grand Rapids suburb of Ada.

GRAND RAPIDS — Three Grand Rapids women on a mission to “keep Creston funky” have entered into a partnership to bring back Gaia Cafe and The Division Avenue Arts Collective LLC, this time in the city’s north quarter neighborhood. The partners are under contract to purchase a vacant 4,972-square-foot building at 1553 Plainfield Ave. NE, which has commercial space on the ground floor and a two-bedroom apartment on the second level.

A co-op hopes to open a grocery store as part of a larger mixed-use project just south of downtown Grand Rapids.

The state will help fund the cleanup of a contaminated former dry cleaner in Wyoming to make way for a redevelopment project.

MUSKEGON — A deal to redevelop the former Ameribank building is making headway, but the project remains contingent on incentives from the city and the Michigan Economic Development Corp. Muskegon developer John Essex, managing partner and president of Core Development LLC, submitted a formal purchase agreement to the city prior to the Jan. 30 deadline. If the project goes ahead, it would transform a partially demolished building into a new use in the core of the city’s downtown.

KALAMAZOO — Southwest Michigan’s largest city is radically rethinking how its street network connects its people to neighborhoods, businesses and major institutions. In a January agreement with the Michigan Department of Transportation, the city of Kalamazoo accomplished a long-standing goal of getting back under local control the major streets through its downtown and into adjacent neighborhoods. Now, officials want to reconfigure the streets into a multi-modal part of the city’s urban center.

A corner commercial building along the East Fulton Street corridor in Grand Rapids is under new ownership.

GRAND RAPIDS — Developers relied on low-income tax credits to add nearly 2,000 units of affordable housing in the city over the last five years. While the credits provide key gap financing to affordable housing developers, officials who administer the funding say the program is consistently “oversubscribed,” leading to delays for new projects.

Federal tax reform means multiple benefits to the real estate industry, although some further guidance is needed for investors to fully understand what that means. After President Donald Trump signed into law the most sweeping changes to the U.S. federal tax code since 1986 with the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, experts pointed to the real estate sector as one of the winners with the reforms.

Van Wyk Risk Solutions has signed a lease to occupy Class A office space in the new Warner Building downtown.

GRAND RAPIDS — The construction industry, both nationally and statewide, continues to express persistent concerns related to a labor shortage and escalating construction costs in the year ahead. 

One of the most active development and property management firms in Grand Rapids in the years after the Great Recession now faces liquidation, MiBiz has learned.

The proposed sale of a site on the west bank of the Grand River could offer the property’s next owner a chance to fulfill some community goals for the city’s waterfront.

Executives at nonprofit development organizations think the dissolution of the Kent County Land Bank Authority will affect their operations, even if some of the specific effects will remain unknown until the agency is officially closed.

Two department store properties in West Michigan will hit the auction block this month.

The Hinman Co. is expanding its property holdings with the acquisition of a downtown Kalamazoo building.

Even with a number of large-scale projects being built, West Michigan developers say they’re still thinking big for 2019. Multiple real estate and construction executives say they see no sign of the industry slowing down in the new year, although many believe companies’ focus could shift away from market-rate housing in downtown Grand Rapids. 

Rex Bell has served as president of Miller-Davis Co. for the last 22 years and has never seen a worker shortage like the company faces today. It’s a problem he expects to continue throughout 2019. With a busy year ahead for the Kalamazoo-based general contracting firm that focuses on higher education, K-12, nonprofit and industrial projects, he hopes for a renewed focus on training by companies and encouraging high school students to go into skilled trades.