What’s next for Grand Rapids building, mural damaged in crash?

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — A car crash into a beloved building on Grand Rapids’ southeast side is leaving room for restoration.

The former Mika’s Boutique building at 701 Eastern St. SE was damaged early Sunday. Police say a vehicle hit the building after a collision with another car.

The crash caused the front of the building to collapse, exposing both floors to the elements. Concrete, wood and other debris spilled onto the sidewalk along Eastern. The building and mess were fenced in and marked with orange ‘closed’ signs, making the sidewalk impassable. Caution tape has been wrapped around Mika’s and the next two buildings down the street.

Astonishingly, the mural on the side of the building that faces Thomas Street, which depicts a Black family and smiling women, is mostly intact. Only a small edge of it at the Eastern side was damaged.

Mika’s and the adjacent buildings have been a focus of Black Wallstreet Grand Rapids.

“Our mission is to acquire and develop real estate to build Black business districts on the Southeast Side, Third Ward of Grand Rapids, (zip code) 49507,” Preston Sain, president and co-founder of Black Wallstreet Grand Rapids, explained the organization.

He cited a 2015 article from Forbes that ranked Grand Rapids as the second worst in the nation for Black people in terms of economics.

“So this is our efforts to rectify that crisis,” Sain said. “We are racing against time and gentrification, but we want to participate in a way where Black-owned businesses are included.”

He said the former Mika’s Boutique, which was a Black-owned boutique and barber shop, is a historic neighborhood site.

“The Brown family owned the building and just recently, I think, the new owners came and kept the name on the building,” Sain said. “This particular strip here (next to Mika’s Boutique) is pretty much vacant. We want to acquire and redevelop it and make sure that the ownership and equity in its occupancy is with the Black community.”

He said Black Wallstreet Grand Rapids looks forward to partnering with the city and a local construction company to get the damage cleaned up and start building the future.

“In current days, mixed-use is kind of the motto that we are going with,” Sain said. “So more than likely, we’ll get renderings drawn up and created and we’ll look to do maybe housing and a retail kind of mixture thing, or it may be all retail on the spacing depending on the architecture visions.”

He said the survival of most of the mural symbolizes the great hope for the future.

“That’s the thing. I would say community members should still come out and take pictures in front of the mural. Enjoy it while it’s still here,” he said. “And maybe depending on the architecture and the renderings, maybe we’ll be able to keep that part.”

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