Signature Associates

Transforming blight: Kalamazoo Eastside group buys 3 long-vacant properties

Posted By: mlive on July 28, 2025.  For more information, please click here to read the source article.

Three blighted properties vacant for more than 20 years may soon be home to new businesses on Kalamazoo’s Eastside. At least that’s the plan, according to the Kalamazoo Eastside Neighborhood Association’s executive director, Arturo Puckerin.

Four months ago, the association purchased parcels at 1203, 1209 and 1213 E. Main St. for a total of $260,000 from Kalamazoo-based EMP Properties LLC, according to city property records.

Two of those parcels have long-vacant buildings on them. The third, 1209 E. Main St., sits empty.

The plan, Puckerin said, is to rehabilitate all three properties and find tenants to lease them from the association. If all goes to plan, it will not only reduce blight, but provide community gathering spaces and support fledgling entrepreneurs, he said.

The first property Puckerin hopes to see transformed, 1203 E. Main St., sits at the corner of East Michigan Avenue and East Main Street. It most recently housed a Dairy Queen, which relocated to Gull Road just after the turn of the century.

Plans are to bring a new small restaurant or cafe into the 1,100-square-foot space. He anticipates something being open there by the end of 2026.

Being across from a bus stop at the intersection of two main roads makes this an attractive location to open a business, he said. The building also has access off Gilbert Avenue, the perfect setup for a drive-thru.

While it hasn’t been decided what will be moving in yet, Puckerin said KENA would like to lease to someone that will offer meals at the $15-and-under price point. That could be anything from franchised fast food to a coffee place, small breakfast spot, a Coney Island or a pizza-by-the-slice type space, he said.

“As you go down the East Main corridor, there’s really a lack of any restaurants,” he said. “And Gull Road is running out of space. The city is running out of space. We need to develop from the inside out. I don’t see anywhere else to grow.”

KENA will take more time with the 3,250-square-foot space at 1213 E. Main St., Puckerin said.

“Right now, we are at a stage of gathering community input and are in the early stages of organizing a capital campaign (to rehabilitate it),” he said.

The property, which was most recently a laundromat, hasn’t had a tenant in about 25 years. Once rehabilitated, the building could house up to three tenants.

There is also further opportunity at the adjacent vacant parcel at 1209 E. Main St.

Ideas from community members so far, Puckerin said, include a bodega or mini mart or another laundromat. It could also be mixed-use office space, he said.

“Being able to rehab these properties in a green way is adherent to being able to secure that funding and making it viable,” he said. “And that’s what really steered this opportunity.

“There are some mold issues in both buildings, but they are both salvageable.”

This is not KENA’s first foray into turning blight into business.

In 2022, under former executive director Pat Taylor, KENA acquired a long-blighted property a half-mile down the road at 1802 E. Main St.

Initial plans called for turning that property — purchased from the Kalamazoo County Land Bank for $3,000 — into a small cafe and community gathering space.

After cafe plans fell through, it was leased to Marcella Lipsey, who opened the Loc’d In Royalty hair salon in the transformed space last fall.

Leasing to Lipsey, as well as leasing out space at the KENA building, 1301 E. Main St., to organizations like Eastside Youth Strong and Trenches Community Church, has allowed KENA to transform and manage more properties, Puckerin said.

“The funding mechanism is really a work in progress,” he said. “Of course, leasing out property helps make the process affordable as an investment. And then, of course, having grant opportunities.”

Puckerin sees the former Dairy Queen as having the most potential for creating revenue for KENA.

The biggest challenge, he said, is the lack of existing business in the area.

That’s something he hopes to see change, one blighted property at a time.