GRAND RAPIDS, MI - Modernist Lines. Sculptural Grove. Urban Living Room.

Which redesign of Calder Plaza do you prefer?

Three concepts for the 160,000-square-foot roof of the Government Center parking ramp were reviewed Tuesday, Aug. 30, at a Downtown Grand Rapids, Inc. workshop that invited participants to vote for which one they like best. Planners are brainstorming how to spruce up the sparse plaza that's home to Grand Rapids City Hall, Kent County offices and the iconic La Grande Vitesse sculpture by Alexander Calder.

You can see renderings of the three designs in the gallery above, and check out site plans here for "Urban Living Room," here for "Sculptural Grove" and here for "Modernist Lines."

"We want to be able to take bits and pieces (the public likes from each concept) and create this thoroughbred idea, this preferred master plan," said Steven Spears, a project consultant with Austin, Texas-based Design Workshop.

"You have the icon (in the Calder sculpture). Now it's time to create the iconic experience for the plaza."

Aside from hosting special events like last weekend's Hispanic Festival, the plaza between Monroe and Ottawa avenues, south of Michigan Street NW, is rarely a gathering place. Advocates of a redesign want to remake the plaza so that more people will want to be there and do stuff.

Some common amenities in the three concepts include pedestrian access between the plaza - now walled off high above the street on the west - and Monroe, space for retail shops and restaurant buildings like a biergarten, water features, an area for lawn games and trees. The concepts would add 25,000 to 40,000 square-feet of tree canopy to the site, plus as much as 8,000 square-feet of structure shade to make the plaza less barren and sun-scorched.

One design includes a pedestrian bridge across Monroe into the adjacent DeVos Place convention center, and all of them have a stairway from the plaza down to Monroe. Restrooms, elevators and room for food trucks also figure into each concept.

Each design also has a style and amenities of its own: One includes a pavilion and stage next to "urban puddles," one features a community lawn and playground and one puts a grove of trees on part of the concrete plaza near the Calder sculpture. No changes are proposed for the sculpture itself.

DGRI plans to whittle the three concepts down to one by October. A survey is expected to be posted here next week.