For 30 years Gina’s Hallmark has sold gift paper, ribbons and bows at 301 E. Grand River Ave.
But now, Pam Coughlin has packaged her store in boxes in an effort to make room for The City Center Project - a redevelopment city officials will use to help revitalize the downtown.
Coughlin began to hear rumors three years ago that her store may be relocated, and a week and a half ago Hallmark employees began to move boxes to a new location at 539 E. Grand River Ave.
City officials plan to demolish the building that housed Coughlin’s store for three decades in March.
“We have been at the corner of Grand River and M.A.C. since 1971,” said Coughlin. “You hate to give up any location where you have been for 30 years.”
But the move hasn’t been easy, with Coughlin in the hospital with an undiagnosed illness, the move has been even harder.
“It’s been a lot of work and a lot of stress,” Coughlin said.
Hallmark employees have been assisting Coughlin with the move and agree that it is a long and difficult job.
“I have been helping move the store since before Christmas,” said Hallmark employee Gail Gubry. “It’s hard without the owner here to tell us what she wants and what she doesn’t want.”
But in order to make room for the $35 million redevelopment project, which will run along M.A.C. Avenue from Grand River Avenue to Albert Avenue, many merchants needed to be relocated.
The last two businesses to move to make way for the renovations are Gina’s Hallmark and BW-3, 220 M.A.C. Ave.
BW-3, which has been on M.A.C. Avenue for six years, will move into the 706-space parking structure of the project.
The restaurant should close down and begin moving in April, when city officials plan to demolish the building, and reopen at its new location in the first week of May, said Chad Ball, general manager of BW-3.
“We like the new location,” Ball said. “Moving up to ground level will help sales, since we have always been in the basement.”
Coughlin also is optimistic that her new location will help business.
“We have a parking lot out the backdoor and a lot more student traffic out the front,” she said. “I hope those two will offset being in a different location.”
The two buildings that housed Gina’s Hallmark and BW-3 will be demolished, and rebuilt into one large building.
“It will take a couple of months to get the whole site cleared and the buildings demolished,” said Jim van Ravensway, East Lansing’s director of planning and community development. “Actual construction of the building will start around the beginning of May.”
