With summer in full swing, we've picked out some highlights of what's happening on the water's edge in July, including Rothbury, a West Michigan Woodstock.

Source: Rapid Growth
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By: Deborah Johnson Wood

Steve Antaya and his father, Tom Antaya, own Tom’s Food Center and three other successful businesses in Portland, MI. So when they decided to diversify their holdings even further, it seemed a natural move to open their new Biggby Coffee shops in nearby Lansing. But the healthier Grand Rapids economy drew them, instead.

Just over a year ago, the duo purchased the Biggby Coffee on Monroe Center. Since then, they’ve opened one on West River Drive and one on Cascade Road. Last month, they opened the Biggby Coffee at Michigan and Fuller, in a building recently constructed by longtime Grand Rapids entrepreneur Gus Afendoulis.

“We’ve been looking at other opportunities to grow our biz outside Portland, and we got talking with some people who said there’s a heck of a lot more opportunities to grow in Grand Rapids,” says Steve Antaya. “The Grand Rapids area seems to be almost the only spot in the state that seems to have any growth left.”

The new shop serves six different brewed coffees each day, as well as espresso, cappuccino, lattes, iced drinks, blended drinks, and fruit crème freezes. The stores offer a limited menu of bagels, bagel sandwiches and snacks.

The franchisor suggested the Michigan/Fuller location.

“It’s a high traffic corner,” Steve says. “The Michigan Street corridor is really starting to pop, and benefit from the healthcare growth has spread outward from the core city and the visibility of our sight lines is great.”

The Antayas’ four Grand Rapids shops employ 50 people. Steve says he and Tom are looking at four more Grand Rapids properties for Biggby shops, but declined to name the locations.

Source: Steve Antaya, Biggby Coffee

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Deborah Johnson Wood is the development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at deborah@rapidgrowthmedia.com.

Source: Rapid Growth
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Spectrum Health's six-story, 284,000-square-foot Lemmen-Holton Cancer Pavilion opens on June 30, and with that comes 75 new healthcare jobs for the facility.

The pavilion will serve cancer patients and their families on an outpatient basis, services that include cancer diagnoses, treatment planning and treatment. The facility connects to Butterworth Hospital, the Helen DeVos Children's Hospital and the Meijer Heart Center via a 102-foot pedestrian tunnel beneath Michigan Street; those facilities will continue to provide inpatient care in conjunction with services from the Lemmen-Holton Cancer Pavilion.

"The pavilion will have just over 200 Spectrum employees in the beginning, we created 75 new jobs and full-time equivalents," says Lisa Shannon, VP of ambulatory services. "We're still hiring a few, but all central staff are hired and are training. So far, we've hired administrative support and leadership, physics department support, systems administration for advanced technologies, and clinicians in radiology."

From the beginning of the project, a patient and family advisory board guided the development of the cancer center to be a place of hope and healing with indoor gardens, an outdoor chemotherapy area, a multi-story waterfall, natural light and materials, a sitting area with fireplace, framed nature photographs, and patients wear robes instead of hospital gowns.

"The building was designed to create hope and healing," Shannon says. "And families of patients have ample options with a caf�, a specialty gift shop and a family resource center where they can get books, pamphlets, and talk with resource specialists about cancer and its treatments."

Source: Rapid Growth
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Customer loyalty, new services and ingenuity are all reasons that Schuler Books in downtown Grand Rapids is in such demand that it had to expand its mid-week evening hours. The store, which opened last October at 40 Fountain NW, offers downtown workers a place to sit down for a healthy bite at the Chapbook Caf�, pick up a gift, a card or a book, and grab a latt� to take back to the office.

"We've gotten busier in the evening so we decided to expand our Wednesday hours to 8 p.m. to accommodate the people going to downtown festivals and Blues on the Mall," says Emily Stavrou, spokesperson.

Stavrou says the store draws a lot of foot traffic from conference attendees at DeVos Place. For the past several years, Schuler's has supported keynote speakers who are authors by ordering a supply of their books and staffing the sales table at the conference. The difference is that now the downtown store handles these duties instead of the 28^th Street store.

"It's a great way to corner those markets and make ourselves more visible," Stavrou adds.

The store's offering of unique services and events -- such as lunch catering, lunchtime book signings, and Final Friday concerts on the last Friday of each month -- bring in customers. The June 27th Final Friday concert features Robin Lee Berry from 6:30 to 8.

"A pleasant surprise is that customers who patronized our other stores are now patronizing our downtown store because they work downtown," Stavrou says.

Source: Rapid Growth
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Baseball was a more leisurely game before state-of-art stadiums, instant replay, and multi-million dollar player contracts. And a growing number of teams like the Kent Base Ball Club are recapturing the essence of America's Pastime. Batter up

Source: Rapid Growth
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The world is changing dramatically. But Bruce Katz says�the federal government is stuck in the 1980's. His Blueprint for American Prosperity aims to bring Uncle Sam into the 21st century, rejuvenate metro areas, and chart a course to prosperity in the modern era.

Source: Rapid Growth
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Developers recently wrapped up renovation of a west side apartment that's larger than many west side houses.

The 2,200-square-foot second-floor apartment features four bedrooms, three full baths, a den and a laundry room. Developers John Green and Andy Winkel of Locus Development gutted the entire space, but salvaged the original wood floors and 12-foot-high tin ceilings. The living room has windows on three sides and a skylight. The kitchen features stainless steel appliances, and five parking spaces come with the apartment.

"We're not marketing specifically to college students, but it's likely that's who would be more attracted to this space," Winkel says. "I think back to when I was in college, and to have this layout would have been pretty nice."

The two renovated commercial spaces on the main floor each have storefront windows. Signs By Tomorrow occupies one space, and Winkel says the remaining 1,000-square-foot space is ripe for a deli, hair salon or art studio.

"We really like the Bridge Street corridor and saw an opportunity to develop an underutilized building that would bring more people into the area with residential and retail, and to make the pedestrian walkway more friendly," Winkel says.

"It's within walking distance of the DASH lots, the YMCA and GVSU, and with the addition of River House Condos just up the street, we expect to attract more people to the area."

Source: Rapid Growth
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Wyoming, MI is high on Priceline.com's list of possible cities in which to locate an international call center that could result in 424 company jobs and 186 indirect jobs for the region.

"We have received the incentive package from the State of Michigan, which is very exciting," says Brian Ek, Priceline.com spokesperson. "We understand the City of Wyoming is considering its own incentive package and there's the matter of the lease to negotiate. The first of the hurdles has been crossed and we're waiting for everything to fall into place."

Last week, the Michigan Economic Growth Authority, working in collaboration with the City of Wyoming and The Right Place, Inc., approved a state tax credit of some $1.3 million. The MEDC offered up to $200,000 for job training, and the City of Wyoming proposed a seven-year tax abatement of $1.1 million.

Ek would not say if other locations are also under consideration or�divulge the location of the Wyoming property under consideration. But he did say that the company looked at several places and "Michigan is one of the areas that very aggressively courted the business."

The call center jobs would include multi-lingual customer service positions to support the 17 language groups Priceline.com serves, other customer care positions and some editorial jobs. The jobs will pay $9 to $10 per hour to start.

"The high-tech jobs that companies like Priceline.com can bring to the area are vital to the success of our local economy," says Birgit Klohs of The Right Place, the Grand Rapids-based economic development corporation assisting Priceline.com with the site search, the MEGA approval process and the tax incentives.

Brian Ek expects the company to make its final decision sometime in July.

Source: Rapid Growth
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When Creative Byline, a revolutionary web-based application that streamlines the process publishing houses go through to select new manuscripts to publish, went live last December the company had one publishing house on board.

To-date, eight major book publishers, including TOR, St. Martin's Press, and Dutton Children's Books, are using the system, and four more -- Skirt Publications, Lyons Press,�Outdoor Life and Globe Pequot -- each a division of Globe Pequot Press, signed on last week.

The web site allows authors to upload manuscripts or samples for a small fee, have the manuscripts read, and then, if the manuscript is ready�for an�editor, to have a response from that editor in three weeks. Using traditional means of submissions, authors often wait months, sometimes over a year, to get a response, and they aren't able to "shop" the book to other publishers in the meantime.

"Our statistics show that right now 88 percent of all authors' submissions to editors get a response within three weeks," says Brad MacLean, creator of the software. "We've had 300 submissions of book-length manuscripts, and have a couple that could be close to being accepted by a publisher, but we don't have our first match yet."

MacLean adds that the site has over 50 editors participating so far, and the list keeps growing.

As the field of publishing houses grows, so does the need for competent staff and MacLean has fulfilled that need by expanding the company's contractor base by seven, including two salespersons based in New York who call on publishers.

Creative Byline's office is located at Lakeshore Advantage, an economic development corporation in Zeeland.

Source: Rapid Growth
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An innovative new residential wind turbine could revolutionize how wind energy is harvested in the U.S. and the product is ready to enter the market via its first distributorship, a West Michigan company.

Source: Rapid Growth
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West Michigan companies and entrepreneurs will soon be able to access innovations from across the country thanks to a new partnership between innovati ... Read More on guru Doug Hall, Founder and CEO of Cincinnati-based Eureka! Ranch and The Right Place Inc. The collaboration includes creating a standardized evaluation system for assessing the market value of ideas and building a national network of ideas for companies to electronically access via the internet.

Today at a special program open to the public, Hall and the InnovationWorks team presented the results of recent collaborative efforts and shared best practices for creating an innovation-driven company. Through the national network, West Michigan businesses and entrepreneurs can gain access to vetted ideas from around the country, and inventors whose ideas cannot effectively be commercialized locally can gain national exposure. InnovationWorks� recently launched Idea Portal, accessed through its website at www.innovationworkswestmichigan.org, will serve as West Michigan�s conduit to the national network.

�The work we had already done with the Idea Portal and our commitment to accelerating innovation and commercialization in West Michigan positioned us perfectly to create this partnership with Doug,� said Jim Ross, Vice President, Innovation & Technical Services for The Right Place. �As the beta site for this new system, West Michigan companies will be among the first in the U.S. to access a wealth of proven, validated innovations they can use to increase market share, improve competitiveness and, ultimately, grow our regional economy.�

Although vetting and accessing new ideas is at the heart of the new network, Ross notes that InnovationWorks goes far beyond matchmaking.

�So much of what you see happening nationally is based on brokering inventions,� he said. �As part of an economic development organization, our goals are much more holistic. We are focused on collaborating regionally to increase West Michigan�s capacity to create and develop innovations at all stages of the commercialization process. West Michigan is already a center of excellence for advanced manufacturing; we want it to become a center of excellence for innovation as well.� View Less

Source: The Right Place

Three West Michigan cities have been awarded $800,000 in brownfield grants from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency � the first time any such fun ... Read More ding has come to the region.

Part of a $74 million release of grant funds to communities in 43 states, the money will be used to fund brownfield site assessments in targeted redevelopment areas within Grand Rapids, Wyoming and Kentwood.

�Michigan has been a leader in brownfield redevelopment for more than a decade,� said Rick Chapla Right Place Vice President, Urban Redevelopment, noting the state�s passage of groundbreaking brownfield legislation in 1996, which subsequently served as a model for other states. �West Michigan has taken full advantage of that leadership, becoming one of the most active redevelopment regions in the state. It is a credit to that momentum that we were able to work with these cities to secure this funding.�

The brownfield redevelopment is a large part of a growing regional commitment to sustainable principles, and is at the heart of projects like Grand Walk � a sustainable business park in northern Grand Rapids � as area municipalities use public dollars to make at-risk urban properties financially competitive with suburban and rural greenfields.

�The strong urban center Grand Rapids enjoys is due in part to the dedication we have to making urban properties attractive for investment,� said Grand Rapids Mayor George Heartwell, noting that Grand Rapids� Brownfield Redevelopment Authority has approved over 65 brownfield redevelopment projects to date resulting in over $800 million in private investment and over 7,000 jobs. �The Right Place and our city Economic Development Department collaborate to make best use of tools such as state tax credits and these federal grants so that we can assist businesses and developers, thereby enhancing their investment in our community.�

�Kentwood has matured to the point that we have many of the same land use issues that are typically thought of in core cities like Grand Rapids,� added Kentwood Mayor Richard Root. �Working with partners like The Right Place to leverage resources like these grants is another way we are attracting investment and jobs for our community and showing that Kentwood is open for business.�

�Manufacturing has been a core industry in Wyoming�s economy and we are working to rebuild that investment,� said Wyoming Mayor Carol Sheets. �This funding will help us revitalize our available industrial properties making them more attractive for investment and expediting the re-growth of our manufacturing sector.�
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Source: The Right Place

West Michigan regional economic development leaders today got a first look at InnovationWorks� (IW) new Idea Portal during a special demonstration ses ... Read More sion. A critical tool of IW, the session was designed to familiarize key partners with the Portal so they can actively engage area businesses and entrepreneurs in the new initiative, dedicated to advancing innovation throughout West Michigan by accelerating the commercialization of inventions and new technologies.

The Idea Portal serves as a central, web-based repository of innovations, entrepreneurs and commercialization resources, using sophisticated algorithms to identify and accelerate the linking of new ideas to commercialization resources in the region. Powered by Microsoft Sharepoint software and developed in collaboration with Metrics Reporting and People Design, the Idea Portal electronically matches new or orphaned intellectual property from inventors and companies with entrepreneurs looking for new ideas. Once a successful match is made, IW staff can assist the commercialization process with additional coaching and resources.

�What is really critical at this point, however, is stocking the Portal with IP and those looking for it,� explained Jim Ross, Right Place Vice President of Innovation & Technical Services and MMTC-West Regional Manager, who manages IW. �Helping our strategic partners understand the tools will support their efforts to grow West Michigan�s economy and increase our ability to extend IW�s services throughout the region.�

Serving a seven-county West Michigan region, IW provides an integrated system of resources designed to mine inventions and new technologies, connect companies to ideas and coach individuals on commercialization. The initiative will expand innovation capacity in West Michigan resulting in increased prosperity and new wealth for the region. IW is funded by WIRED West Michigan and developed by The Right Place in collaboration with its economic development partners throughout West Michigan.

In addition to managing the Portal, IW also hopes to harness needs and ideas through its newly formed collaborative networks, where the region�s top companies, academic institutions and professionals work together to share best practices on innovation and intellectual property and co-develop new technologies.

�Directly assisting individuals, companies and entrepreneurs is a large part of what we do, but we have seen first hand the power of collaboration in innovation,� said Ross. �As the West Michigan regional office of the Michigan Manufacturing Technology Center (MMTC), The Right Place has developed opportunities for companies to share best practices and work collaboratively on shared issues. We are taking that model and applying it to the acceleration of new technologies, materials and processes that will take West Michigan companies to the next level and secure our region�s position in the global marketplace.�
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Source: The Right Place