Davenport President Rick Pappas said that if the programs at the university’s newly renovated downtown center are as popular as they expect, the school does have the option of expanding upward by adding more floors. PHOTOS: JOE BOOMGAARD

By Joe Boomgaard | MiBiz
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GRAND RAPIDS — After a short time out of downtown Grand Rapids, Davenport University is back in the heart of the city with a newly renovated building at the corner of Ottawa Avenue and Louis Street.

The facility will house the college’s Downtown Center, where Davenport President Rick Pappas said the university will offer its MBA and accounting programs starting this fall.

Davenport will also locate its Institute for Professional Excellence (IPEx) at the building. The IPEx program offers customizable degree programs to corporations.

“I feel we never left this market,” Pappas said, referring to downtown Grand Rapids. The university sold its former downtown campus to Grand Rapids Community College and moved local programs to its Caledonia site, which he considers part of the same Grand Rapids market. “What you see here (is the result of) growth with the healthcare and business market. We want to be a part of the city. … This is a new opportunity for us to explore the needs of the health and business community.”

Pappas stressed that the center will offer degrees that will lead to careers, a key requirement for Davenport to move forward on any academic program. He said the project is in no way a reaction to Grand Valley State University’s Seidman College of Business building a new facility in downtown. Davenport is the state’s second largest business school with 6,600 students total across its several campuses, behind only Michigan State University, Pappas said.

Market research showed university executives that they could fill an unmet need by opening a campus in the center of the city. Pappas said while many people have bachelor’s degrees, master’s degrees are the new differentiator many business and healthcare professionals are seeking. The Downtown Center will offer them another option, he said.

The school will target its offerings to those needs with a mix of MBA, MBA for healthcare and accounting programs, he said.

Rockford Construction Company Inc. served as the developer and design-build contractor for the project.

Chad Barton, EVP and investment officer at Rockford Development said his company got involved with Davenport last September to get the property under contract and work through the acquisition and inspections. When the acquisition was completed in December, Rockford’s construction crews completely gutted the facility and worked to upgrade the mechanicals even as the final renderings were being completed.

Rockford tapped Concept Design Studio for the design phase.

“From January to April, we worked to completely rebuild the interior, put a new roof on and work on utility upgrades and bring this up to a functioning building,” Barton told MiBiz. “We wanted to get it open by June 1 so Davenport could ramp up their programs and get through the façade upgrade as well.”

Barton said the facility “wasn’t in horrible shape” despite being vacant for much of the last decade, but most of it was “functionally obsolete.” The project team knew it would have to do quite a bit of interior work to bring the facility up to the standards for a technologically advanced classroom environment — all on a tight schedule.

“We had a fairly tight time frame, but that’s where the preconstruction side helped,” Barton said. “We were able to facilitate a fairly nice transition for Davenport and work through the contracting and flow of the institution.”

Initially, Davenport and Rockford planned for just an interior renovation, but later decided to do an exterior project to bring the site more in line with the neighborhood.

“This is a key piece of property — a gateway to downtown,” Barton said. “We recognized that it had become somewhat of an eyesore with all the development around it — the GRAM and Leo’s and the upgrade at 50 Monroe. (The exterior) is really what people are going to see, and they did a nice job with finishes and working with us to integrate those renovations.”

Davenport University’s new downtown center features a mix of collaborative classroom space and boardroom-style space, also intended to be used for various classes.

Barton said the project was “pretty straightforward” from a construction standpoint. The lower level includes a mix of fixed-wall and movable-wall classrooms, as well as a landing entry area with the potential for a refreshment stand. The classrooms are a technology showplace, with easy connectivity and interactive features, including Steelcase’s media:scape solution. The rooms are also done up with a special paint that allows professors and students to write on the walls, said James Becsey, VP for facilities management at Davenport.

“Flexibility is what drove the classroom part of (the project),” Becsey said. “There’s no traditional head of the classroom. … We wanted to foster creativity and interaction.”

The center’s second floor features offices, a boardroom that could double as a classroom, and an open collaborative classroom.

Davenport spent $1.3 million renovating the facility — which doesn’t include the price of the building, which they will buy over time from Rockford, Becsey told MiBiz.

“One of the keys for us is how the development arm is able to work with the institution to really transition the acquisition to the construction phase,” Barton said. “We controlled the real estate and provided an opportunity for Davenport to step into the property. We were able to bring a good blend of resources and expertise with the development group to be able to work though the approval process and add value to the project for Davenport.”

The company is taking on a similar role with the recently announced higher education medical project on Belknap Hill in Grand Rapids. Barton said the development group at Rockford is able to work on getting all the permitting and approvals and work through the political process while providing some cover on potential issues to the end client.

“We’re mitigating any pitfalls that are out there. We’re just facilitating (Davenport) eventually owning it,” Barton said of the 45 Ottawa Avenue site.

Pappas said that the Downtown Center would be able to serve about 800 students per semester on the two finished floors — a basement level remains unfinished. And if the programs take off like he hopes they will, the university also has room to expand upward by adding additional floors as needed.