Larkin’s remodel benefits from state grant

“Brent Slagell recently received a $428,000 grant to transform Larkin’s Restaurant into a retail space and four apartments”

“I’m doing it a little bit for the love of the game. There’s not a windfall for these contracts. If there was, I wouldn’t get the grant money.” 

Brent Slagell - developer

By Justin Tiemeyer - Contributing Writer 

3 Dec. 2024

To appear in a physical Lowell Ledger soon!

On Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2024, WZZM 13 published an article titled “New housing developments coming to Zeeland, Spring Lake and Lowell thanks to state funding” detailing a number of recipients of Revitalization and Placemaking (RAP) grants from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation. There were only a couple of clues as to the Lowell grant recipient’s identity:

“In Lowell, a vacant building downtown will be redeveloped into a mixed-use building, with four residential housing units and a commercial space. The redevelopment project is supported by $428,500 of RAP funding and is estimated to cost a total of $1.191 million.”

It did not take long for the Lowell Ledger to track down the recipient, Brent Slagell, who received state funding to support his remodel of the old Larkin’s Restaurant building into four single-bedroom apartments over a main-floor retail space.

Slagell has been holding on to the Larkin’s building for a few years now. When he first bought it, he flipped it into a self-proclaimed “dive bar”, called Junction Bar and Grill. A few months after opening, Slagell announced that he would close Junction and open an Italian restaurant called Romynelli’s, but that never came to fruition. The building features a rare abundance of parking spaces, but Slagell noted that the restaurant-density in downtown Lowell made him weary of opening the Italian eatery.

Slagell is old hand at converting historical buildings into profitable businesses. In 2011, he purchased the old Superior Building. Prior to Slagell’s acquisition, the building’s interior had been covered with upwards of two feet of sawdust from its previous owners, the Superior Furniture Company. Slagell has since converted the building into fourteen apartments and a restaurant. He is also responsible for remodeling the old Lowell Serenity Club building in the middle of the Flat River.

When Slagell initially changed direction from a restaurant to a retail space, he wanted to make the main floor into two separate retails spaces, each with entry doors facing Main Street, but early in the process, Chris and Victoria Runstrom reached out to him and showed interest in occupying the entire lower level. On Mon., July 8, 2024, Runstrom made the following announcement from the Wear Forward Facebook account:

“We will be combining our kid’s store Milo’s Consignment and Wear Forward into one bigger location! We are so excited for this, as a family, because managing one store will be so much easier on us than two, and we will be able to all work in the same building together. We are also excited for our customers with this move because it’s going to be an easy one-stop-shop for shopping and consignment! Plus, we plan to greatly expand our kids vintage collections!”

When the Lowell Ledger arrived on site at the old Larkin’s building, there was a crew working on the second story, tearing out old ceiling to see what they might find.

“I’d show you around up there,” Slagell said, “but I think it would be a little too dangerous.”

In order to begin work remodeling the building, Slagell had to have an idea of how much money the entire project would cost. That way the State of Michigan and the Lowell Historical Society could determine how much money they could issue in grants.

“Without grant money, this project is not economically viable,” Slagell said.

As the work crews started tearing down the old, in order to make room for the new, they found a lot of unexpected things. In the entryway, multiple layers of wall covering became visible. There was a Japanese-style scene on one layer of wallpaper; it was a print, but it imitated Japanese brush-stroke art, depicting sparse houses with pagoda-style roofs amidst forests of minimalist trees, a style that was popular in the 1930s. The wallpaper below that features a scene reminiscent of Philadelphia, back when the ink was still wet on the Declaration of Independence. These buildings were constructed in the late 1800s, after all, not long after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, and they have been through a lot.

More concerning is the split in the brick along the parking lot side of the building that goes all the way through and all the way up.

“It’s 145 years of wind and rain and resettling,” Slagell said.

After a three-year slog, Slagell has finally uncovered the bones of this building, and he has a better perspective on the project as a whole. He is getting $428,500 in RAP funding that he knows is not nearly enough. Another developer might have torn the building down and started over, because it is cheaper to do that, but not Slagell. He has invested $5.5 million into Lowell in the past seven years, and all of his money has gone toward projects just like this.

“I’m doing it a little bit for the love of the game,” Slagell said. “There’s not a windfall for these contracts. If there was, I wouldn’t get the grant money.”

There is incidental evidence to support Slagell’s statement. For example, he is incredibly hands-on. Work crews are accustomed to seeing Slagell on-site, and he seems to get a kick out of uncovering the decades-old secrets of a historical building. He is the type of person who might pull a passerby inside and tell them a story, provided there is an extra hardhat handy, that is.

Slagell and crew intend to work through the winter, and, if all goes well, he should be able to move people in this coming spring.