GRAND RAPIDS, MI - As Mike VanGessel wheels his Jeep Cherokee through the city's lower West Side, he's in familiar territory.

"This was my paper route. Really, much of this neighborhood is where I learned to do business," says VanGessel, as he drives past his parent's former home on Myrtle Street NW and through the neighborhood where he grew up and played as a boy.

VanGessel, now president and CEO of Rockford Construction Co., is still doing business in his old neighborhood. Now it's just on a larger scale.

Three years after moving the company's headquarters into the neighborhood, VanGessel is working on a series of plans and projects aimed at revitalizing the gritty, working-class neighborhood into an entertainment, shopping and residential neighborhood.

At the corner of Bridge Street and Turner Avenue NW, Rockford is building a $17 million mixed development that will include apartments, office space and a brewery for the New Holland Brewing Co.

The project has already transformed a sleazy corner that was notable for a peep show, lingerie shop and abandoned gas station that once served as a gateway to Bridge Street's tattered collection of old bars and second-hand shops.

Rockford Construction's West Side Projects 11 Gallery: Rockford Construction's West Side Projects

Further down the street, Rockford is building

The Lofts on Alabama,

85 trendy loft apartments in partnership with 616 Development, one of the city's most ambitious downtown housing developers. The $17.2 million project will be ready to take tenants in later this year.

Further south on Fulton Street and Lexington Avenue, Rockford Construction is building Fulton Place, a 112-unit student housing complex within sight of Grand Valley State University's downtown campus.

The $35 million project along West Fulton Street between Lexington and Seward avenues will include 232 beds in three buildings when it opens this fall.

VanGessel's biggest plans are west of Seward Street, where he and his partners have bought up or established control of most of the vacant lots and old buildings north of Bridge Street in a block that is bounded by Stocking Avenue on the west and stretches north to Second Street and Int. 196.

He calls it the Super Block.

The 31/2-acre site is destined for a development that is likely to include housing, retail shops and restaurants and offices. VanGessel and his partners control the whole block except for the owner of a BP service station who does not want to sell.

Having survived at least two floods in the past century, the old buildings are likely to be demolished, VanGessel said. They also have "vacated" Lexington Avenue north of Bridge Street, giving them an uninterrupted piece of land that will serve as a blank slate.

Former First Ward city commissioner Walt Gutowski, who owns Swift Printing and several other Bridge Street properties, sold the peep show and gas station across the street from his shop to VanGessel to help him put the New Holland Brewing Co. project together.

As a fellow West Catholic High School graduate, Gutowski said he's known the VanGessel family for some 45 years.

VanGessel has succeeded in bringing well-heeled investors to the table, such as family members of Amway co-founder Rich DeVos; 42 North, owned by businessman Mike Jandernoa and his family; and SIBSCO, owned by the family of former U.S. Ambassador to Italy Peter Secchia, Gutowski said.

"We all love the West Side and want to bring it back," said Gutowski. "Mike has done a great job of bringing the horsepower back to the West Side."

Charlie Secchia, a principal in SIBSCO, said he and VanGessel have become trusted partners not only in their business ventures. VanGessel also is the godfather to his daughter, Secchia said.

Their family has partnered with Rockford Construction on downtown building projects dating back to the early 1990s, Secchia said. "We've done over 20 deals together," he said.

When co-founder John Wheeler left Rockford in 2009, the Secchias continued working with VanGessel as he assumed control of the company and moved its headquarters to his native West Side.

While successful in the boardroom, VanGessel remains most at home on the streets of his native West Side.

While showing off the 616 on Alabama housing project, he introduces his visitors to Joe Lehnen, a fellow West Catholic graduate and handyman who is fixing up a century-old house next door to the apartment project.

He's eager to revitalize the West Side, but VanGessel said he also respects the bar owners, churches, parish halls and property owners like Lehnen who want to keep their buildings and property intact.

The West Side has always had a "grittiness" to it that VanGessel sees as an attribute, not a hindrance to persons who are looking to live, work and be entertained on the edge of the downtown area.

"I remember Bridge Street when it was a lot of fun to go to," says VanGessel with a smile.

Jim Harger covers business for Mlive Media Group. Email him at jharger@mlive.com or follow him on Twitter or Facebook or Google+.