The Grand Rapids Downtown Market, one of the last economic development projects undertaken by the Grand Action Foundation, has lived up to the name "grand."

Grand Action was a nonprofit coalition of community leaders founded in 1993 to spur economic development in downtown Grand Rapids. Over the years, it was also responsible for the construction of the Van Andel Arena, DeVos Place convention center, renovation and expansion of the Civic Theatre and the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine-Secchia Center.

Founded by John Canepa, Dick DeVos and David Frey, Grand Action raised $420 million in direct funding for $3.5 billion worth of projects. The organization declared mission accomplished last September and shut its doors in March.

The three-story, 138,000-square-foot market is owned by Downtown Market Holdings LLC, a nonprofit corporation formed by Grand Action. It was built in 2012 on the site of five old abandoned warehouses and factories south of Wealthy Street, which runs east-west through Grand Rapids and has become the epicenter for the city's gentrification.

While things were already perking up on Wealthy Street when the Downtown Market opened, the area around the market, just south of downtown, had cratered and there wasn't a whiff of gentrification in the air. It was a furniture warehouse and factory district where everything stood empty and forlorn. Roofs were collapsing inward, most windows had long ago been shattered, floors were warped and rotting. Scrappers stole interior pipes and exterior gutters.

The vision Grand Action had was of a market that would feature restaurants, cooking classes, hot food stalls and fresh meat, seafood and produce. But the vision wasn't just a market unto itself, it was of a market sparking commercial development in the surrounding blocks, putting cars back into parking spots and people on sidewalks and in buildings.

It has all come to pass. The market — the building is LEED certified gold, one rating down from the highest level of platinum, and all tenants are required to recycle — is thriving, and the surrounding area has come back to life.

Across Ionia Avenue from the market are the Baker Lofts, a five-story complex that is fully rented, a renovation project begun after the market opened at the site of the historic, long-shuttered Baker Furniture factory.

A block north of the Baker Lofts are the Klingman Lofts, in a $22 million renovation of the nearly 100-year-old Klingman's Furniture factory.

Within easy walking distance is the University Prep Academy, a Moosejaw store and the Craft Beer Cellar.

"The market was meant to be a catalyst, and it has been," said Mimi Fritz. "This area was bad. Bad."

Fritz has been president and CEO of the market since it opened. Previously, she was marketing director for downtown Holland for nine years. She joined the market while it was being built.

"I literally worked out of a closet in the Grand Action office. They cleared it out for me," said Fritz, who oversees 45 employees, 22 of them full-time.

She said the market is self-sustaining, with excess revenue going to the Downtown Development Authority, which owns the land.