GRAND RAPIDS, MI – Despite opposition from one neighborhood association and mixed opinion from another, Grand Rapids Planning Commission this afternoon OK’d plans by Rylee’s Ace Hardware to demolish a West Side home and turn the property into parking for a new store.

Still needed are two variances next week from the city’s Board of Zoning Appeals. But the store intends to clean up a contaminated former gas station at 1204 W. Fulton St. and open a new 10,000-square-foot store next spring.

“Fulton Street needs help,” said Jeff Boorsma, owner of Adobe In & Out and a member of the West Fulton Business Association, which supports the store’s plan. “It needs to be cleaned up.”

The Kent County Land Bank plans to acquire the property on Rylee's behalf. The site then would get cleaned up with $400,000 from the city's Environmental Protection Agency Revolving Loan Fund.

Plans for the gas station site include the store and 15 parking spaces. Razing the adjacent home to the north, at 21 Garfield Ave. NW, would make room for 14 more parking spaces in order to meet city standards.

RELATED: Rylee's Ace Hardware plans to 'go to war' with Home Depot at new store on Grand Rapids' West Side

Complicating review is an Area Specific Plan, set to come before the commission next month, that cautions against commercial encroachment into adjacent neighborhoods. The John Ball Park Community Association opposed the home removal, while South West Area Neighbors, Inc. declined to take a position due to division among residents.

“It’s exactly the (development) model we worried about,” said Peter Carlberg, president of the John Ball Park Community Association. “There’s plenty of old gas stations up and down Fulton Street. If the Area Specific Plan is not followed, then the exceptions are already being created.”

Nathan Koetje, Planning Commission chairman, said groundwater contamination both on the former gas station site and the residential property eyed for parking makes it a unique case.

The loan to clean up the site's contamination will be reimbursed with $400,000 in future tax revenue. To generate that much tax, Rylee's needs to build a bigger store than the site can hold, said Matthew Jamrog, the company's vice president.



"Lord knows there's plenty of challenges with this site. This is most difficult site we've ever tried to touch," he said. "We did everything we could to try to make this site work so we could invest enough to clean it up."

Some other perspectives voices at today’s public hearing:

Tim Cone, a Valley Avenue NW resident, said the neighborhood near the proposed store is generally clean and crime-free because “it’s mostly owner-occupied and non-commercial.” With the Garfield home turned into parking, that could change.

Damien Campbell, a Richards Avenue NW resident, said redevelopment of the gas station “eyesore” is long overdue.

Larry Duthler, an owner of Ball Park Floral & Gifts, said the Rylee's plan is not perfect for the sites on Fulton and Garfield, but it's better than the gas station that's there now.

Rylee’s next week will seek a zoning variance to allow a 2-foot landscape buffer between the planned parking lot on Garfield and the neighboring residence on Veto Street NW. City code requires 10 feet of landscape between parking lots and housing. Rylee’s also plans to install a 6-foot privacy fence on that property line.

Also, rather than building the store at Fulton and Garfield as city code requires, Rylee’s will seek a variance to build the store at the corner of Fulton and an alley to the west.

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