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Trades convene at Convention Center

Date Posted: September 19 2003

GRAND RAPIDS - The new $220 million De Vos Place Convention Center, a one million square-foot complex expansion that will include an exhibition hall, flexible-use ballroom and a "grand gallery," is currently a job magnet for about 300 building trades workers.

Set for completion in January 2005, the complex is being built on a 13-acre riverfront site that involves re-use and renovation of some existing areas as well as new construction. The focal point will be a 75-foot-high glass-enclosed "Grand Gallery" which will link the Grand River to Monroe Avenue, offices, government buildings and the nearby Amway Grand Plaza Hotel.

The De Vos Place Convention Center fills a major void in Grand Rapids - a lack of sufficient convention space. That void will be filled by a new 160,000 square-foot "Class A" exhibit hall. The project also includes a 40,000-square-foot flexible-use ballroom, with theatre seating capacity for 5,600, and a 35,000-square-foot space with sub-dividable meeting rooms. Also part of the project is a 25,000-square-foot banquet kitchen, a 700-space underground garage and a new glass-enclosed lobby for the adjacent 2,446-seat De Vos performance auditorium.

"Our work has gone very well, and it's been a very interesting project," said Mike Phillips, a West Michigan Plumbers, Fitters and Service Trades Local 174 member who is superintendent on the job for mechanical contractor Andy J. Egan Co. "We have the usual scheduling challenges, but we're also working in and around an operating center, and one of the challenges we've had is where to store materials. It's getting better, but this has been a tight site."

The project is being managed by a joint venture of Erhardt/Hunt and is one of the largest in the area. It has been mixed bag of union and nonunion workers, which is typical for Michigan's second-largest city, which is actually a union-friendly town with some big corporate players that are anti-union.

Egan has placed up to 30 plumbers and pipe fitters out of Local 174 on the project, and iron workers from Local 340 performed the steel erection. There is also a mixture of union masons and laborers on the project, and a small number of operating engineers.

There are a few Sheet Metal Workers Local 7 members at the convention center - but most of their activity has been restricted to leafleting and picketing on the project. Local 7 Organizer Tim Caron said the union has conducted informational picketing since January, protesting the wage levels of Target Construction, a nonunion sheet metal company which he said is paying its workforce 30 percent less in wages and benefits than their union counterparts.

"It's tough to compete against that wage difference," Caron said. "But that's the way it is in Grand Rapids." He said major conservative corporate contributors like De Vos and Van Andel families "and the rest of the corporate structure in Grand Rapids and their friends in the ABC" (the Associated Builders and Contractors) have done their best to get rid of union influence in the region.

But construction unions are continuing to win some battles. Through their steel erection contractor Azco Steel, Iron Workers Local 340 also placed a significant number of members on the convention center project - about 50 - although their work is now done. "We thought a company out of Texas was going to set the iron," said Bruce Hawley, business manager of Local 340. "When lo and behold, Azco got it, somehow. We got lucky."

And Local 174 Assistant Business Manager Kirk Stevenson said their mechanical contractors continue to get a fair share of work in the area.

"We've made some major strides in the downtown area in new construction," Stevenson said, "and we're also getting a significant portion of work in the service industry. You'll see a lot our contractors' trucks doing service work, and that's been a really positive thing for us. There's no question, it's been a tough market here. But for our union, at least, we are growing our market share in Grand Rapids."

Area building trades unions are hampered by the fact that the largest general contractors in Grand Rapids are nonunion. They lack a dependable pool of general contractors, which removes a dependable hiring structure for union crafts. But unions still work collectively with their contractors to maintain and gain market share, especially on school work and to some extent, manufacturing.

The one major effort the unions have undertaken in recent months through the Western Michigan Construction Alliance is to hire a retired school superintendent to approach and educate local boards of education about the importance of having a responsible contractor policy in order to avoid shoddy work.

But sometimes shoddy work can't be avoided - especially when union crafts aren't on the job. Looking from the back of the De Vos Place Convention Center, Local 174's Phillips pointed to a nearby decade-old high-rise building and said tenants are leaving the building in droves because of inferior workmanship. The building was built 100 percent nonunion.

"I've heard it's falling apart," Phillips said. "Now maybe they'll have us back in there to do the job right."

DEMOLITION, RENOVATION and new construction are all part of the $220 million De Vos Place Convention Center in Grand Rapids.
A CHEMICAL FEED line is assembled in the mechanical pump room at the DeVos Place Convention Center by Ryan Fisk of Plumbers, Fitters and Service Trades Local 174.