Grand Rapids St. James Church Apartment Plan Splits Neighbors

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — A Grand Rapids investment firm’s plan to raze St. James Catholic Church on the city’s west side and put up a 240-unit apartment building drew both support and strong objections from neighbors at a public meeting Thursday, Nov. 12.

Beckett Industries, which is based in Grand Rapids, has proposed tearing down the roughly 150-year-old church on Bridge Street and build a $55 million mixed-use project it calls St. James Place. The firm said it has spent about two years in talks with the Diocese of Grand Rapids about buying the property and shaping a plan.

The church has been empty since the COVID-19 pandemic. Its last Mass, a farewell service, was held in June 2022, and the building now has cracked front steps, graffiti and other signs of decay.

At the meeting at Jackson Street Hall, the company’s founder told residents the firm first looked at keeping the building and reusing it as a food hall, a wedding venue or space for nonprofits. None of those ideas worked financially, he said, leaving demolition as the only option the numbers supported.

The developers said the new building would borrow from the church, keeping its name and echoing its Victorian Gothic style. They plan to save as many pieces of the old church as they can, including stained glass and bricks, and want to place stained glass windows at the entrance.

Former parishioners and other neighbors pushed back, saying the loss of one of the city’s oldest churches would erase a piece of local history. Some asked that the building be saved and handed to a nonprofit or turned into a health clinic.

Other residents who live near the church said they would rather see the site rebuilt than left to sit vacant for another decade. Even some supporters raised worries about parking, since early plans show 179 spaces or fewer for the 240 units.

Beckett Industries is refining its application with the city’s planning department. Once the plans are final, the city will decide whether the project must go before the Planning Commission and the City Commission.

Filed under: Grand Rapids MI Business News