GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — At the start of 2025, Grand Rapids welcomed its new mayor, David LaGrand, who is already settling into his first month in office. Recently, FOX 17 had a one-on-one interview with our newly elected official to see how he plans to lead the city.
We talked about housing, public safety and the city’s future.
"Things are really, really good in Grand Rapids, but 'really, really good' gives you an opportunity to make things really, really better," Mayor LaGrand said. "It's exciting to be able to dig into really starting to think about first steps on some big policy lifts."
LaGrand has a long history with the city. He is a GR native, former city commissioner and former state House representative. In addition to public service, LaGrand has had a hand in several businesses in the city.
He has helped start up Four Friends Coffee Shop, Wealthy Street Bakery, and Long Road Distillers.
"I'm a neighborhood guy. I love having things in my neighborhood that I can walk to," he said.
LaGrand is poised to lead the city for the next four years, but his office remains empty after two weeks on the job.
"I wish I wasn't sitting behind a desk for this interview. I'm hoping to have more of a collaborative workspace in here," he added.
During our conversation, the mayor focused on the issue of growing housing stock in the city.
"[What] we're in the middle of doing right now is formulating a land bank for the city. I think that is potentially our best tool to do the most transformative work in the space," LaGrand explained.
The city has struggled to keep up with the need for new housing.
In 2023, Housing Next released data showing that Grand Rapids needs 14,000 new homes by 2027.
City data shows that, at a recent Economic Development Project Team meeting, the city saw around 10% of that over the past two years.
- 2019: 539
- 2020: 276
- 2021: 739
- 2022: 534
- 2023: 941
- 2024: 502
Most of the new housing is in places with 20 or more units. So, we asked LaGrand what progress he'd like to see this time next year.
"I really hope that we can do some real, substantive improvement to how people see housing opportunities in Grand Rapids and how we've met people's needs there and how we've actually delivered some good results in that space," LaGrand said.
We followed up with his plans to address the need.
"Time is money. So if we can get rid of some of the impediments and speed up the construction process..." he added.
Housing isn’t his only focus while in office. LaGrand talked about public safety.
"I really hope that people feel like they're getting justice delivered to their community in the way that they find meaningful and appropriate and healthy," he added.
Another need while in office is improving neighborhoods.
"I think that we just have to keep delivering a city that people want to be in and that people want to stay in and people find welcoming, interesting, maybe quirky," he added.
LaGrand is organizing a series of community meetings known as "Mayor Mondays" across the city.
"We're just going to have town halls where we can talk about these issues because people in the community are concerned about it, but they also have ideas," LaGrand said. "I'd much rather have a policy that is formulated by the community as a whole, and then we try to implement rather than, you know, a bunch of people in a room trying to come up with a policy and then selling it to the voters."
Watch our full interview with Mayor LaGrand below:
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