ZEELAND, Mich. — The Zeeland Planning Commission conducted a field trip Thursday evening to review capital improvement projects and set priorities for the upcoming year.
The commission took a bus tour of the city to assess current projects and potential areas for development.
“Brainstorming is a great way to describe the kickoff bus tour, slowing down, looking at the city and seeing what’s missing,” said Timothy Maday, Zeeland community development director.
Maday explained that the city’s capital improvement project list includes “many short-term goals, long-term goals, high-level stuff. And while all of them are not implemented or immediately considered by planning commission, this is an opportunity to keep those larger dream type stuff out in front of us and keep those conversations going.”
The tour included a visit to 17 East Main Avenue, a project that was on last year’s list.
“What was a vacant lot and an underutilized building, today stands a three-story mixed-use building with commercial on the main and 22 apartments on the second and third level,” Maday said.
Commission members also stopped at Riley Street to review the site of the new headquarters of JR Automation.
“We wanted to ensure we viewed that to understand how that development fits with the rest of the community, where those connection points for multi-use path are available,” Maday said.
Another priority for next year’s list is the entry point to the city at East Main Avenue, Main Avenue and Fairview Road.
“We also viewed residential areas where, again, we have additional overhead lines and some public right of way, plantings and those type of things that really have the opportunity to have a great, impactful visual, visual degree for our resident,” Maday said.
Maday said that the commission will reconvene at its next meeting to brainstorm the list of potential projects.
“This document forwarded to City Council is the tool to start to prioritize energy and resources on these items if council thinks they’re appropriate,” he said.
This story was initially reported by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
