Hotels in Grand Rapids, Michigan

A little about Grand Rapids...

Grand Rapids is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 197,800. The Grand Rapids Metropolitan Statistical Area has a population of 774,084, with a Combined Statistical Area of 1,320,487 as of the 2006 Census Estimate. It is the county seat of Kent County, Michigan. It is the second largest city in the state (following Detroit) and is the principal city in the region of West Michigan.

Grand Rapids is home to several colleges and universities. Aquinas College, Calvin College, and Cornerstone University are private, religious schools, each with a campus within the city. Grand Rapids Community College maintains a campus downtown and facilities in other parts of the city and surrounding region. Grand Valley State University continues to develop its presence in the city with an expanding downtown campus, begun in the late 1990s on the west bank of the Grand River. Ferris State University has a growing campus downtown, including the Applied Technology Center (operated with GRCC) and the prestigious Kendall College of Art and Design. Thomas M. Cooley Law School, a private institution, has a campus in Grand Rapids. Davenport University, a state-wide educational institution, has its main campus in Grand Rapids. Western Michigan University has a long-standing graduate program in the city, with facilities downtown and in the southeast.

Beginning with the installation of Alexander Calder's abstract sculpture La Grande Vitesse, the city has been host to an annual festival of the arts downtown, known to locals simply as Festival. During the first weekend in June, several blocks of downtown surrounding the Calder stabile in Vandenberg Plaza are closed to traffic. Festival features several stages with free live performances, food booths selling a variety of ethnic cuisine, art demonstrations and sales, and other arts-related activities. Organizers bill it as the largest all-volunteer arts festival in the United States. Vandenberg Plaza also hosts various ethnic festivals that take place throughout the summer season.

Summer concludes with Celebration on the Grand the weekend after Labor Day featuring free concerts, West Michigan's largest fireworks display and food booths. Celebration on the Grand is an all volunteer event to celebrate life in the Grand River valley.

Grand Rapids is the home of John Ball Park, Belknap Hill, and the Gerald R. Ford Museum, the final resting place of the 38th President of the United States. Significant buildings in the downtown include the DeVos Place Convention Center, Van Andel Arena, and Amway Grand Plaza Hotel. The Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts is located downtown, and houses art exhibits, a movie theater, and the urban clay studio.

Along the Grand River are symbolic burial mounds which were used by the Hopewell tribe, a fish ladder, and a riverwalk.

Grand Rapids is also home to the Van Andel Museum Center. Founded in 1854, it is among the oldest history museums in the United States. The museum's sites currently include the main site constructed in 1994 on the west bank of the Grand River (home to the Roger B. Chaffee Planetarium, the Voight House Victorian Museum, and the City Archives and Records Center, which was the site of the museum and plantarium prior to 1994. The museum has, in the past few years, played host to a handful of notable exhibitions, including the Dead Sea Scrolls, and The Quest for Immortality: the Treasures of Ancient Egypt. The museum is set up as a non-profit institution owned and managed by the Public Museum of Grand Rapids Foundation.