Battle Creek Film Festival

Downtown Business

By: Avery Ellenwood

November 18, 2019
 Table of Contents
Page 2: Introduction
Page 4: Battle Creek Unlimited
Page 8: Handmap
Page 11: Conclusion
Page 11: Contacts

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Introduction

When I first heard of the Believe in Battle Creek Film Festival project that my

partners and I would have to complete, my mind started racing. What could we do for

our topic? Who could we speak with in order to receive information? How do you even

begin to create a short film? When we sat in our group to decide on our topic, a couple

of possible ideas came up. Someone threw out the police force, and another threw out

school systems. However, we all had one idea that everyone felt strongly about, and

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this was the lack of businesses downtown. Each of us felt that downtown could and

should have more places for us to eat, play, and relax.

For our project, we wanted to focus on the businesses already located downtown

and how they have survived. We also wanted to focus on any businesses moving

downtown and their hope for the future. Our group's goal is to highlight that we do have

restaurants and stores that are downtown with more up and coming, but to stay open

they need our business. We interviewed multiple business owners so that we had the

information we needed to inform the public and accomplish our goal.

The first business we interviewed was Battle Creek Unlimited. BCU is the driving

force behind the new businesses and projects happening in downtown. One business

Battle Creek Unlimited attracted to the downtown area is Handmap Brewing, and

Handmap is the second business that we interviewed. Handmap is a restaurant that will

be housed in the newly renovated Record Box, which will also have a graphics business

and event space on other floors. From each interview, we asked the owners about

themselves, the business, and their vision for downtown Battle Creek.

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Battle Creek Unlimited

Battle Creek Unlimited is an organization started in 1972 that was tasked with

converting 3,000 acres of land in Fort Custer to house industry. When they were

converting the land, BCU had other goals they needed to accomplish as well. The first

goal was to get new companies to come to the industry park they were creating. The

second goal was to create new jobs, and those new jobs came with the new companies.

The last goal was to diversify the economy, which meant not focusing on cereal anymore.

Today, Fort Custer is Michigan's largest state-certified industry park. Inside the park, 85

companies from around the world employ 13,000 people.

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 When we went to Battle Creek Unlimited, none of us knew what to expect

considering we had never heard of BCU until our teacher recommended we talk to them.

Let’s just say we all felt like very prominent business people that day. We had a greeting

right at the door as we walked in, we were offered drinks before the interview started,

and you should have seen the conference room we got to sit it. Robert Corder is a

worker at Battle Creek Unlimited that helped us answer all the questions we had and

then some. Robert is the vice president of attraction for BCU. Fitting enough, his job is to

attract new companies, international and domestic, to the area.

He and his team came up with a new strategic plan in 2018 to get new companies.

This plan has five new sectors of business they want to focus on. These include the

automotive, aviation and defense, food and beverage, warehousing and logistics, and

lastly the energy-storing industries. With these industries, they have specific goals apart

of a 5-year plan. They want to create 750 new jobs with a pay of $17 an hour or higher.

They want to invest $250 million into new businesses. They want to attract 15 new

businesses in total. Robert showed us that they are already excelling in each of these

areas for it only being the 1st year of their 5 year plan. For example, they already have

created 185 new jobs, which is 25% of the total number they want to create. Another

example is that they have already invested $56,710,000, which is 23% of the total amount

of money they want to invest in new businesses. With all of this success, they took a step

back and looked at where it has come from. They found that the industry park is very

successful, but maybe they should begin to focus on our downtown.

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 Downtown hit the bottom of a valley in 2018, but we are now headed toward a

peak. The peak is coming from a variety of changes that are happening, but Robert

emphasized that the changes will take time. BCU wanted to get a new restaurant to

move to the downtown area. To attract a new restaurant, Battle Creek Unlimited put out a

$200,000 incentive and a free building for an owner to claim. This incentive was

announced around Christmas time in 2017. Not one, but two restaurants wanted to take

advantage of the incentive. Both new restaurants are breweries, and Robert told us that

adults in Michigan love craft beer, so the breweries are a great addition to downtown.

One brewery is Handmap, and they are partnered with Cody and Kaitlyn Newman

who took the building from BCU and flipped it. The other brewery, New Holland, took the

building on the corner of Michigan Ave. and has begun construction on the former

nightclub. The New Holland Project started with an investment of $2 million and is now

up to $4 million. It is supposed to be a brewery and distillery, restaurant, seasonal beer

garden, retail space, and coffee bar opening in the spring of 2020.

In order to get the money from the incentives, the new restaurants have to meet

certain goals that they set. This system is called performance-based cash grants,

meaning the businesses don’t get money upfront until they meet their goals. Therefore, if

they agreed with Battle Creek Unlimited that for every worker they hire they get $300

and they are going to hire 25 workers, they won’t get the $300 for each worker until they

prove they hired 25 workers. The money the businesses get paid comes from BCU and

the state of Michigan. BCU gets some of its money they use for the performance-based

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cash grants from the BCTIFA. Because Battle Creek Unlimited is a big part of the industry

park and airport, the BCTIFA allows them to take part of the property taxes that were paid

to the city for their business incentives.

Battle Creek Unlimited invested in a couple more food businesses downtown.

One of these being the popular Umami Ramen that is located more towards the

Northside of Battle Creek. Umami Ramen was awarded $250,000 through the downtown

real estate improvement fund BCU has created. It was made possible by the Kellogg

Foundation who put $2.5 million into the fund to help those who wanted to redo vacant

buildings downtown, improve code compliance, resolve structure and mechanical issues,

and bring the buildings back to their productive use. JPG Resources was also awarded

money through the real estate improvement fund. With this money, they are going to

build a permanent home for Cafe Rica, a small business already downtown. Battle Creek

Unlimited not only focused their efforts on restaurants, because restaurants alone are not

going to save Battle Creek, but invested in some other projects downtown as well. One

project they invested in was the Heritage Tower renovation. By investing $3 million into

the 19 story building that will house market-rate apartments, they hope to provide

workers at the Fort with a nice place to live and attract them to Battle Creek.

Overall Battle Creek Unlimited has only invested a small portion of their total

budget for downtown. This means that we can still expect a lot more help from BCU to

improve our downtown however, we have to remember it takes time.

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Handmap Brewing

Handmap Brewing is a new brewery and restaurant that is going to be located on

the ground floor of the Record Box. The Record Box is located on Carlyle Street in

downtown Battle Creek. Handmap is owned by Chris McCleary and Jennifer Brown,

both natives of Battle Creek, who graduated from Harper Creek High School. They

moved here from Chicago where they both got experience on how to run a business.

Chris worked at Goose Island Beer Company where he learned the process for brewing

beer. Jennifer worked as an accountant who helped start two businesses in Chicago.

After spending 26 years away from Battle Creek, Chris and Jennifer finally felt like it was

time to move home to pursue their dream of owning a brewery.

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 When we interviewed Chris and Jennifer, we asked how they got the funds to

start Handmap. They informed us that Battle Creek Unlimited is a huge hand in how this

dream was even possible. When BCU put out the $200,000 incentive for a restaurant to

locate downtown, Handmap decided this was the perfect opportunity to seize.

Handmap, working alongside Restore (269), renovated the historic building back to its

former glory. From the outside, the Recordbox is a long, brick building, along with lots of

windows. Opening the large doors we walked onto a stairway that has two sets of stairs,

one up and one down. If you were to go up, you would run into an office space and

event space. But if you go down, and you’re going to want to, you’ll run into Handmap.

On the left, you can look in a window and see the brewing operations happening. On

the right is the door into the restaurant.

The goal for Handmap is to make it more of a social bar, one where you don’t

feel like you have to sit down. There is a bar that is going to seat around 34 people and

a large open space beyond that which will house multiple tables. There will also be a

standing bar and a large custom built-in booth. The Record Box is located right on the

river, so Handmap is taking advantage of that and are creating outdoor seating. Chris

and Jennifer said that they would like to bring a Chicago flair to their restaurant.

Handmap is a brewery after all so there will be onsite brewing with a rotating

selection of craft brews. They also have a mug club that they started to gain a following.

As for food options, they are going to keep them lite. When they first open, they are

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going to have soft openings, when workers and themselves get used to the operations

they would like to have live music and maybe extend the food options.

We asked Chris and Jennifer what their vision for Battle Creek is as far as

businesses. They both said that they remembered when they were kids and everyone

came downtown. There was shopping, movies, and everywhere was always crowded.

They explained that they want it to be like that again, with their brewery being the

reason people come to downtown Battle Creek. We also asked how they plan on

staying open, as we have seen many businesses come in and out. Their answer was

they don’t know for sure, but they know that the brewing business is fresh and new.

They said that as of right now they are hitting it at a good time because it is very popular

and hope that this popularity carries out.

Handmap will be a new and exciting place for people to come and visit. Once

there is a decent flow of people coming in and out of the downtown area, maybe even

more businesses can open. Slowly but surely, the addition of the new restaurant and

others will have a positive impact on the progression of downtown Battle Creek.

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Conclusion
If you didn’t believe in our downtown before viewing our project, I hope you do

now. There are many new businesses headed our way, which means new opportunity.

Opportunities for the people of Battle Creek to have fun, and make memories.

Opportunities for our downtown to make a comeback and support a booming city once

again. The only way this can happen however, is if the Battle Creek community supports

them.

Contacts
Battle Creek Unlimited

4950 W. Dickman Road, Suite 1

Battle Creek, MI 49037

Phone: 269.962.7526

Handmap Brewing

15 Carlyle Street

Battle Creek, MI

Jack Pearl’s Team Sports

26 Michigan Ave W.

Battle Creek, MI 49017

Phone: 269.964.9476

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Rice's Shoes

62 Michigan Ave W.

Battle Creek, MI 49017

Phone: 269.963.9273

Cafe Rica

80 W Michigan Ave

Battle Creek, MI 49016

Phone: 269.420.5037

The Rink

75 Houston St.

Battle Creek, MI 49017

Phone: 269.963.7465

Umami Ramen

78 Calhoun St.

Battle Creek, MI 49017

Phone: 269.224.3264

Clara’s On The River

44 McCamly St. N.

Battle Creek, MI 49017

Phone: 269.963.0966

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