“MUSKEGON, Mich.–Developer Jon Rooks from Parkland Properties of Michigan is doubling down on Muskegon.
His company recently arranged to buy the Holiday Inn Muskegon Harbor and invest$1.5 million dollars in improvements. The company’s goal is to make it more of a convention friendly place for meetings, dinners and big events.
We’re going to upgrade the infrastructure, we’re going to enhance the food and beverage menu, the deck and the pool have beautiful pools to the lake,” said Rooks.
Parkland properties already own the Shoreline Inn and Rooks says since 2009 they’ve increased occupancy from 19 percent to 50 percent. For comparison hotels in Kent County are running at about 60 percent.
The team is also working on building waterfront homes and condos. “We really think that what we’re doing in Muskegon with apartments will help the home sales on lakefront land and what we’re doing with both of those things will help the hotel because those people will frequent the restaurants and frequent the bars,” said Rooks.
These planned renovations haven’t be accomplished without help from the City of Muskegon and the state in the form of incentives. They’ve given Rooks property like the Old Fire Station with the promise he would re-develop it into Parkland offices.
Ed Garner, President of Muskegon Area First says overall there are a lot of great things happening in Muskegon.
“There’s actually been 150 to 160 million dollars of investment into downtown over the past 10 years but it’s not all into one or two blocks so people don’t see it every day but there’s investment and re-investment happening,” he said.
