Midtown CityZen

Midtown CityZen is a four-story, 34,000-square-foot mixed-use building at 637 Michigan Street NE in downtown Grand Rapids, completed in November 2018. The building holds 44 rental apartments in studio, one-bedroom, and two-bedroom configurations, plus 3,600 square feet of ground-floor retail anchored by the Kaffiene coffee shop.

The location places Midtown CityZen half a mile from Spectrum Health Butterworth Hospital and only a couple of blocks from established Midtown retailers like Martha’s Vineyard Fine Wine & Gourmet Grocery — a combination of medical, dining, and grocery access that makes the building a popular choice for healthcare workers, graduate students, and Midtown residents who prefer walking to driving.

Residents enjoy a community room with a pool table, in-unit washers and dryers, private indoor mailboxes, and the convenience of a first-floor coffee shop that doubles as the building’s informal lobby. The architecture is contextual to the Midtown neighborhood, with a scale and rhythm that fits the corridor rather than fighting it.

Midtown CityZen is one of Third Coast Development’s signature urban infill projects: a project that adds meaningful density on a corridor that needed it, without erasing the neighborhood character that made the location desirable in the first place.