Grand Ledge

Is the glass half-empty, or half-full? The business climate in downtown Grand Ledge

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By Paige Wester
Living in the Ledge staff reporter

Downtown Grand Ledge is flourishing with successful businesses, but also struggling with vacant buildings. Bridge Street, which is the main street of downtown Grand Ledge, is what holds many of the small and new businesses along the downtown area for people to come down for entertainment, food, and shopping. With that being said, many buildings are vacant and run-down. “There are always empty spaces downtown as businesses come and go,” Grand Ledge Mayor Kalmin Smith said. “There is also a vibrant business district on Charlevoix and Saginaw in Grand Ledge.”

A few businesses have been around for years, such as MacDowell’s and About the Home.

Business & Economy

Vintage businesses face struggle with changing technologies

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By Eric Finkler

Grand Ledge Gazette staff writer

GRAND LEDGE, MI – As the years go by small, historic businesses struggle to continue with technology updates. Chuck Pantera, brought up the issue up at Monday’s city council meeting as the owner of the Sun Theater, a small, vintage movie venue of Grand Ledge. Changing of the medium:

The movie industry is no longer supporting film because of its cost and is switching to only digital film. For small time theater owners like Pantera, these costs could mean the end of his business. Changing the 35 millimeter film projector into digital film will cost Pantera more around $64,000 and at his current ticket price of $2 per ticket he doesn’t think he will gain enough profit to pay for the transfer and worries it will cause the theatre to go out of business.