KALAMAZOO, Mich.-A building once known as the Kalamazoo Stationery Company Building is getting new life in the form of an Irish Pub, rooftop common space, and 47 apartments including 16 micro-apartments and it will be named Walbridge Common. The micro-apartments would be targeted toward young adults, as Joe Durham told Fox 17. “The target would be students who just graduated from Western Michigan or Kalamazoo College, or they might be entrepreneurial in spirit, they’d like to start their own business but don’t want to spend a lot of money where they live.” The plan is for the micro-apartments to cost $500 per month.
Durham and two business partners have joined to form NoMi LLC, to complete the nearly $4.5 million dollar project. Durham told Fox 17, “I live and work and eat and play in Kalamazoo and really enjoy it and I think that opportunity should be available to more people.” This goes hand in hand with a recent study that said Kalamazoo would need more than one thousand additional apartment units within the next five years. “I wish we could get more developers interested in working in downtown Kalamazoo,” Durham said. Durham hopes to start construction within the next thirty days and open Walbridge Common in early Spring 2016.
