Marquette’s Shophouse Park project gets $3 million state grant

LANSING, Mich. (WLUC) - An innovative commercial and residential development planned for Marquette’s north side took a step forward Tuesday.

The Michigan Strategic Fund Board approved a $3 million performance-based grant to support the Shophouse Park project. Owner and developer David Ollila of Marquette says the grant money will be used to build infrastructure that supports Michigan’s economy.

“This is a state-wide project that will garner national attention by connecting the upper and lower peninsula economies, our rural to urban centers and the nearly $900 billion outdoor industry to our global mobility powerhouse,” Ollila said.

As TV6 has previously reported, the project will consist of a technology park, research and development center, and outdoor recreation incubator. It will consist of eight buildings totaling 40,000 square feet located on 3.44 acres just east of the Kaufman Sports Complex. Ollila says it will include live, work, and research and development space to serve the outdoor recreation and mobility industries. The project is essentially a commercial, residential, and industrial campus where forest meets factory.

The Michigan Economic Development Corporation says the project will include a collection of small-footprint live-work-innovate space. It is strategically located in an area that allows its users to take advantage of the wide variety of terrain and conditions that Michigan’s Upper Peninsula has to offer, while facilitating the knowledge base that Michigan has developed in the outdoor mobility space.

In addition to experienced development and management teams, the project team will collaborate with ecosystem collaborators to harness the energy and capture the attention of the industry. That includes a broad array from across the state, including the Detroit Regional Partnership, InvestUP, Centropolis Accelerator, universities, private industry and federal, state and local units of government. The project will also focus the attention of the national and international recreation industry on Michigan, leveraging investment and bringing more business opportunities to the Upper Peninsula and across the state.

Ollila says the project will require a total investment of $9 million, and he is working now to close out the rest of the required financing, which will be a collection of public, private and traditional banking dollars.

Ollila says he is excited and engaged to work with the Marquette City Planning Commission and Marquette City Commission through the Planned Unit Development and site plan approval process for Shophouse Park.

Ollila says Tuesday’s vote by the MSF board is an “early vote of confidence” from the state.