TAKE TWO: $30 million office development proposed for Studio Park

TAKE TWO: $30 million office development proposed for Studio Park
The developers of Studio Park in Grand Rapids hope to add a $30 million, six-story office building to the project.

GRAND RAPIDS — Developers for the new Studio Park entertainment district have resurrected plans to add an office building at the project, MiBiz has learned.

Olsen Loeks Development LLC of Grand Rapids, in partnership with Studio C, says it will develop a new $30 million office development at 100 Ottawa SW in Grand Rapids.

Early plans call for a six-story, 90,000-square-foot building with 10,000 square feet of ground-floor retail. The building would also feature a rooftop deck with an outdoor kitchen and fireplace, a skyview fitness center and access to the 960-space parking structure included in Studio Park.

“An office building rounds out the mix of a mixed-use development, and it brings a great daytime activation to the space,” Jeff Olsen, partner at Olsen Loeks, told MiBiz. “It’s just a required component to create the 24/7 activation and energy that will exist in Studio Park.”

The so-called “Studio Park Office Tower” will be included in the next phase of the development, with a 12-month construction timeline, Olsen said.

The initial phase of Studio Park is set to open in September south of the Van Andel Arena. The entertainment district project includes a movie theatre, music venue, hotel, apartments, restaurants, retail shops and outdoor piazza.

Pre-leasing for the new office and commercial spaces began this week through brokers at Colliers International in Grand Rapids.

Olsen Loeks’ move to restart plans for offices at Studio Park comes about five months after Grand Rapids- and Oak Brook, Ill.-based Franklin Partners LLC scrapped similar plans for a Class A office building at the development.

Franklin Partners cited low demand in walking away from its proposed $30 million, 100,000-square-foot project, which it spent around eight months marketing to potential users.

The firm previously told MiBiz it approached a variety of suburban employers across the region, expecting they would jump at the opportunity to lease space in the downtown building, a trend that was happening in other markets. Instead, some existing downtown tenants expressed interest, but deals for the building failed to materialize.

Colliers International noted in its 2019 West Michigan Economic and Commercial Real Estate Forecast that it expected the West Michigan office market to mature this year and compete with larger cities region-wide. The firm forecasts continuing positive momentum for office leasing in the region, with an expectation that national companies will grow their presence in the area.

The principals at Olsen Loeks Development remain confident they will achieve a different result from the previous office building proposal based on the current state of the market.

“Now that Studio Park is further along in its construction and is closing in on its opening date, it really helps to cast the vision of what’s to come,” Olsen said. “There’s still strong occupancy, there’s still strong rental rates being gathered, and I think there’s still a lot of activity in the market.

“We’re confident enough in this opportunity that we’re going to put our version of a Class A office building to the market and see how it responds.”