The Slow Demise of a Great Downtown

Meijer Thrifty Acres in Norton Township 1961

Muskegon's downtown began to come apart as retailers began to expand outside of the downtown district. The first to really affect the downtown was Meijer Thrifty Acres. They had a store on Apple Avenue and Wood Street. That building is now part of the Community Mental Health facility. They moved out to Norton Township, that was the city of Norton Shores before it became a city. It was a large store taking up almost the whole corner of Henry Street and Norton Avenue. The store officially opened in 1961 to the dismay of many downtown retailers.

Western Avenue

Many downtown buildings, that only a few years earlier, were full of stores were now boarded over and closed. This gave the downtown a rather abandoned appearance. The city fathers were quite stymied as to what should be done. The thought of a new downtown mall was resurrected from a plan that was proposed back in the 1950's by then city planner Robert Van Hoef. It was his idea to put a roof over a part of Western Avenue. The plan was turned down by the city council back then. He also proposed making Federal Square into a pedestrian only walk way with park like seating. That too was voted down. But by the early 1960's the city fathers were beginning to look at these plans again. Part of the problem for a downtown mall was that most developers preferred tearing everything down and starting from scratch. The city however wanted to preserve some of it's more historic buildings. The Muskegon Chronicle, the cities only daily newspaper, ran an article on the modernization of Federal Square.

A potential revitalization of Federal Square. Used with permission - MLive Inc.

These were the ideas that were being considered by the late 1960's. Henry Street and Apple Avenue had developed into major retail shopping areas. It was at this time that the city of Muskegon had finally decided to go big in it's revitalization of the downtown district. The planning department had developed a map of the redevelopment area.

 This project was known as the Downtown Redevelopment Plan and a map was drawn to show which properties were to be purchased and what amount of demolition was to be done so that a new mall could be constructed.

Downtown Redevelopment Map 1968

This plan was so extensive and was to cost quite a bit of public money that is was put to the voters to decide. In 1968 the project was put on the ballot and a special election was held. It passed by a very high margin of yes votes. Now that the citizens had given their approval it was now time to find the money. Join us next time as we begin to see the Muskegon Mall come to fruition.