Muskegon-lakefront-site-600x250

Hartshorn Village & Marina

Muskegon has approved development plans for a very attractive vacant lakefront site adjacent to the municipal marina, a short walk from downtown. Formerly a parking lot for the vacant industrial facility across the street, the site will host 55 condo homes, green space, and renovated marina facilities. This development is a result of the League’s work through both our MSHDA partnership and the MEDC RRC Pre-Development Assistance program.

Prior to the League’s engagement, a planned development had fallen through–due to a complicated set of easements and environmental restrictions on the property, the original developer had been unable to physically fit their design onto the site.

Muskegon-lakefront-site-Option C refined-300x226The League initially engaged Beckett & Raeder, Inc., (BRI) to develop three different concept plans for the site, each of which would respect the city’s form-based code requirements on the site while considering the easements. Additionally, the design concepts offered ideas for better integrating the site with the marina, potentially allowing amenities to be provided in a development that serves marina users in addition to residents.

The city used these concepts to approach developers and quickly had the property under contract, and the League worked with MEDC to support environmental permitting on the site through the RRC Pre-Development Assistance program. During site planning, the developers expanded the project to include an adjacent, privately-held site, as well as public space improvements to connect the development to the Lakefront Trail and marina. Groundbreaking is planned in Spring 2019, with completion in 2020.

Pigeon Hill Brewing

Muskegon-Pigeon Hill Brewing architect drawing-300x123Pigeon Hill Brewing broke ground on their new production brewery in August 2018. The League provided design support to the project through the Redevelopment Ready Communities pre-development assistance program to ensure the new facility would fit the city’s downtown form-based code, encouraging foot traffic and supporting downtown Muskegon’s growth.

The 15,000-square-foot, $2 million multi-use building is located on Shoreline Drive, across from the L.C. Walker Arena, and will include 12,000 square feet of production space as well as offices, space for brewery tours and tasting and, eventually, retail sales.

The sale of the 77,000-square-foot property for $98,400 was approved by the Muskegon City Commission in mid-August 2018, and Pigeon Hill began moving brewing operations into the completed facility in April 2019.

Future phases on the site include:

  • Developing a new multi-story taproom at 441 W. Western, and closing the existing taproom in leased space at 500 W. Western by 2021.
  • Building a 30,000 square-foot addition on the Shoreline Drive lot if business growth necessitates another expansion. Any work on the final addition is tentatively planned to begin between 2022 and 2027, if necessary.
  • Creation of 10 new full time jobs.

 

Media Coverage