Lake Michigan Credit Union Announced as an Anchor Investor
Grand Rapids, Michigan / August 30, 2022 – Today, the Grand Rapids Chamber is announcing an expansion of its member-driven, collaborative workspace and a five-year investment campaign as a key next step in serving the West Michigan business community. The Chamber is thrilled to announce Lake Michigan Credit Union (LMCU) as one of the lead, anchor investors.
“Just like the Chamber, LMCU is member-driven, focused on helping businesses grow, neighborhoods thrive, and making our communities even better places to live and work,” said Don Bratt, senior vice president and CMO at LMCU. “We’re honored to make this important investment in our local community and this outstanding resource for the West Michigan business community. LMCU and our insurance affiliate, Lake Michigan Insurance Agency (LMIA) are committed to helping our local business community grow.”
“We are thrilled to have LMCU as one of our partners in enhancing a collaborative workspace that is a hub of West Michigan business activity,” said Rick Baker, President & CEO of the Grand Rapids Chamber. “Their support, along with many other regional business leaders, will support enhancing an asset for our business community and furthering our mission of creating a thriving and prosperous West Michigan for all.”
In March of 2018 the Chamber relocated its offices to 250 Monroe Avenue NW to align the facilities with the strategy of being an “epicenter of business activity” for West Michigan. The move has proven to be successful, even with the challenges of the pandemic. In fact, the pandemic has increased the utilization of the workspace by Chamber members.
“Research indicates businesses will continue to have unique meeting and office space needs into the foreseeable future. Expanding our footprint will create more opportunities for our members to meet their changing workforce and space needs,” continued Baker. “In addition, it will support impactful programming, training and assistance to help our members and community grow.”
An example of how the Chamber office has helped our community grow is by hosting both BAMF Health and HealthBar as their businesses launched.
“The Work Café and diverse settings for meetings, events, and collaboration at the Grand Rapids Chamber have been an incredible asset for our company and team members,” said Michael Lomonaco, Director of Sales & Marketing for HealthBar. “More than providing us a ‘home’ as our headquarters was under construction, it provided us a sense of community to meet internally, with customers and partners, and created opportunities for ‘casual collisions’ which, oftentimes, resulted in renewed or brand new connections.”
“One of the collisions has turned into a partnership between BAMF Health and HealthBar,” continued Lomonaco. “We are excited to have recently announced that HealthbBar will providing concierge healthcare services to patients who travel to BAMF’s Grand Rapids, Michigan location for their groundbreaking cancer treatment.”
Since 2019:
- More than 7,000 members have utilized the Chamber work café
- 600+ member reservations for the DTE Energy Board Room
- More than 175 reservations for the Steelcase Conference Center
“The Chamber work café has been an invaluable resource for me. The location is ideal for meetings in person or virtual, and it’s a fun environment with great amenities to take a break from meetings and catch up on emails, chat with the friendly staff, or make connections with other members,” said Marcus Ringnalda, owner of Four Star Theater. “It’s rare that a day goes by in the work café without a chance encounter with someone that helps my business.”
The expansion and five-year strategy will leverage the physical environment to deliver value and opportunity to our members and the community at large. Construction of the expanded spaces is set to be completed in June of 2023.
