One street corner in downtown Benton Harbor is emblematic of the city's resurgence.
It also shows the success of an economic development organization called the Cornerstone Alliance, which targets projects throughout Berrien County, with a focus on Benton Harbor and its twin city of St. Joseph just to the west. It launched in 1989 — the same year Money magazine ranked Benton Harbor as the worst city to live in the U.S. of the 300 cities in its annual survey, down from 298 the year before.
The corner is the southwest intersection of Main and Pipestone streets, just down Main from Cornerstone's headquarters. Here is what is going on there:
- Pipestone Street is blocked off to traffic. Pipestone runs at a diagonal to the normal system of east/west, north/south streets in Harbor, going from the heart of downtown to I-94. City residents approved an income tax in 2017, 1 percent for residents, half a percent for nonresidents working there, in order to fund badly needed infrastructure improvement. Pipestone is the most visible sign of current repair downtown.
- Right at the intersection, despite the winter cold and winds blowing in off nearby Lake Michigan, work is underway on a $3.6 million rehabilitation of the iconic Gray Building, which was built in 1882 but had fallen into such disrepair that demolition seemed the only option when Cornerstone bought it in 2017. Instead, after a massive interior demolition, two retail spaces are being built out on the ground floor and 16 new apartments are under construction in what is now called Benton Harbor Flats, with completion scheduled for May or June.
- Across the alley that runs to the south behind the former Gray Building is the Houndstooth restaurant, considered by many locals, including Cornerstone CEO Rob Cleveland, to be the most innovative, interesting restaurant in the city, on the site of a former tattoo parlor fallen on hard times. The restaurant opened in September 2019 with lines out the door and long waits for tables every night and has continued to do well even during COVID-19.
Directly across the street from that intersection, where Pipestone becomes Water Street, is the city's five-square-block Arts District of wonderfully rehabbed historic buildings, including the Hinkley Building, built in 1898 and one of the oldest structures in town. It houses a blown-glass studio and school called Water Street Glass. Throughout the district are a wide range of galleries, a musical-instruments and used-records store and the Citadel Dance and Music Center, a nonprofit academy.
Many of the buildings were rehabbed through a combination of grants and investments from Cornerstone Alliance and the Michigan Council of the Arts.
Pipestone is shut down to traffic downtown as it undergoes sewer and water-line replacement and street repaving for 3,200 feet, the latest phase of a projected $100 million, 20-year citywide infrastructure project begun in 2018.
According to Christopher Cook, the president of Abonmarche, the Benton Harbor-based civil engineering and architectural firm doing much of the infrastructure work — which includes new sidewalks and planters downtown and in the Arts District — when residents voted on an income tax, a survey showed that 50 percent of city streets were rated poor and 50 were fair. None were good, a point reinforced in 2019 when a sinkhole half-swallowed a bus.
Cook said infrastructure improvements have been funded in part by a revolving loan fund from the state backed by future income taxes generated and by grants from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to replace 100-year-old lead water lines throughout the city.
He said funding for infrastructure will be reduced next year because of the impact of COVID-19. Many of the nonresidents who had been working in Benton Harbor and paying a tax of half a percent are now working from home and paying no tax. But work will continue.
The Gray Building, renamed the Harbor Center Building after a facelift in 1961, originally housed a Woolworth on the side of the building facing Main and the Olsen & Ebann jewelry store on the Pipestone side. When Cornerstone bought the building in 2017, it had sat empty for years.
Cleveland met with a series of developers he couldn't interest in a rehab development. "No one was willing to take a chance. I finally met with Chris Fielding, the CEO at Mishawaka, Ind.-based Cressy Commercial Real Estate, and if I couldn't get him on board, we were going to take it down," said Cleveland.
He said he got a commitment that if Cornerstone could line up state and city support, Cressy would come on board as new owner and developer of the $3.6 million project. In September 2019, after the Michigan Strategic Fund approved a grant of $1.5 million and the Benton Harbor Brownfield Redevelopment Authority approved a grant of $130,000, work began.
Cressy's engineers thought it was worth trying to save the building, but it was a close call. Josh Higginbotham, the architect and project manager on the rehab, said the place stunk to high heaven from the rotting corpses of dead cats. Lichen and moss grew on every surface. There was a foot of standing water in the basement from the roof leaking for 10 years. Exposed insulation had sloughed off asbestos into the air for years.
"We had to do every kind of environmental remediation you can imagine," he said. "At some point we began wondering what if anything would be left."
Demolition took weeks and enough was hauled out of the building to fill 50 40-yard dumpsters.
"It was depressing for the crew. You want to build something but day after day all you're doing is tearing things out," said Higginbotham.
Enough of the building's bones were still solid to let it stand, although 45 big, heavy red steel beams had to be installed to shore things up.
With 20 workers in the building every day and completion approaching, Higginbotham said: "It's really an exciting project, one of the coolest buildings I've ever had the pleasure to work in. As we got into demo, I thought the whole building might need to come down. I'm thrilled it didn't."
Cressy will manage the property when it comes on the market.
The building is two stories but as tall as a three-story building, which made for some interesting design options. There will be three apartments and two retail spaces, about 1,800 square feet and 3,500 square feet, on the ground floor and 13 apartments on the second floor. Ten are studio apartments and six are one bedroom, with the 16-foot-high ceilings on each floor leaving room for loft bedrooms to be built in, adding to the usable space.
Higginbotham said apartment rentals are expected to range from $950 to $1,400 a month.
The Sheffield at City Center is one of downtown Benton Harbor's oldest buildings, built in 1918 after a fire destroyed a city block and the original wood-frame drugstore there. It had fallen on hard times, but a complete rehab was finished in 2019 by local developer Ken Ankli. The building now has four loft apartments on the second and third floors and the Houndstooth on the ground floor.
Ankli once owned the oldest business in town, Brammall Supply, founded in 1873 as a pipefitting and plumbing supply store. His family bought the business in 1940 and he sold it in 2016, with the new owners moving it to St. Joseph and leaving him the building. The ground floor is home to the Citadel Dance and Music Center and the 3 Pillars music store. Upstairs are seven lofts with exposed brick and high ceilings called the Quarternote Lofts.
The next year, he bought the Sheffield. Over the years, the ground floor had been home to a drug store, a soup kitchen, a draft office when the U.S. was still drafting soldiers, a fish house and, most recently, a tattoo parlor.
Ankli approached Cheyenne and James Galbraith, well known brother-and-sister chefs who had worked at a variety of restaurants in Benton Harbor and St. Joe, to see if they would be interested in owning a restaurant on the ground floor once renovation was done. Cheyenne had most recently been the executive chef at the Bistro on the Boulevard in St. Joseph, and James was sous chef at the Bread+Bar, another restaurant in St. Joseph.
"I knew a good restaurant would be a great way to move the city forward," said Ankli. "My daughter had worked for Cheyenne. Nearly everyone knows her, and when I heard she had left the Bistro, I contacted her through my daughter."
Cheyenne, who grew up in Berrien Springs, went to culinary school in North Carolina, then worked for five years in Albuquerque, N.M., with Jennifer James, a seven-time James Beard nominee for best chef in the southwest, before returning to Michigan.
James got his start in the business busing tables and washing dishes, beginning under the table, so to speak, at age 13. Over the years, when time and money would allow, he did a series of non-paid internships at some of the best restaurants in Chicago, including S.K.Y., Boka, Elske, Blackbird, Duck Duck Goat and Bellemore.
"Both James and I wanted to be near the Arts District. This space was affordable and a good place to have a cutting-edge restaurant," she said. "I came in the back door, and it was rough, but I felt immediately like 'This is the spot,' called my brother and said 'Let's do it.'"
After a near total teardown and rebuild — Ankli did manage to save a good portion of the original tin ceiling — the Houndstooth opened in September 2019. Space was tight, just 1,460 square feet, but they managed to fit in 48 seats. Before opening, they raised $53,000 in a Kickstarter campaign and put on a series of pop-up dinners at various locations around town to raise money and get the word out.
They opened on Friday the 13th and were sold out all night. They were sold out Saturday, too, closed on Sunday and Monday and, to their surprise, when they opened on Tuesday, they had a line out the door and were packed all night. "We had to tell people to go home," said James.
Six months to the day after opening, COVID shut them down. When they reopened, they had to restrict indoor seating to 24, but Cornerstone helped them convert part of a parking lot to outdoor seating to help offset the loss of seats inside.
Shut down a second time this winter, doing takeout only, they temporarily cut staffing from 14 to 3 while awaiting approval from Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to start letting patrons in again.
Fare on the current menu includes Nashville hot scallops with koji grits and pickled collards ($19); short rib tartare with egg york, black truffle and shoestring potatoes ($17); milk-braised pork with tarragon and mustard cream ($15); and Calabrian swordfish with spicy eggplant and bone broth ($27).
The Houndstooth also prides itself on craft cocktails, with names like Snail Mail, Gentle Giant, New Friend and Picasso's Potion.
"The restaurant has become a destination for people who might never otherwise have come to Benton Harbor," said Cleveland.
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