Get acquainted with our great city!

Or, Welcome Back, I should say! I’m absolutely in love with our city. I love playing tourist and checking out new places, so naturally I tend to geek out over ArtPrize every single year.

This year, ArtPrize is taking over Grand Rapids from September 19 – October 7 and will have over 1,000 artists and 200 of our amazing venues participating.

If you are not familiar with ArtPrize, you’ve come to the right place although, there’s so much information, you should probably check out the website after reading this blog. But long-story-short; it’s an open art competition judged equally by public vote and expert jury. Any kind of art can be submitted. Art is displayed EVERYWHERE like coffee shops, museums, restaurants, outdoors, vacant buildings, the…

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By the way, what is a CTA? I get this question a lot so I thought I’d explain what it is.

CTA means Certified Tourism Ambassador and it’s a professional nationwide designation that you can earn by taking an initial class to learn the ins and outs of Grand Rapids! To renew each year, CTAs need to continue to experience the attractions in the city and log points online for a yearly renewal. So, yes, I got “credit” for recently visiting Boulder Ridge Animal Park in Alto, Butcher’s Uniondowntown (hello Bloody Mary’s!) and Millennium Park…all in the last week. I love being a tourist in my own city, so I try to rack up the points each year and see how many new places I can learn about!

Grand Rapids has one of the fastest-growing programs in the USA…

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SVG' Map of GR

If you’re a Grand Rapids resident, you’ve no doubt seen the infamous “Map of Grand Rapids” that’s been circulating its way through local media outlets and social media sites over the past few days …

Understandably, that map has stirred up quite a bit of controversy, both in the real estate sector and among the general public at large. Because we at SVG Real Estate Firm pride ourselves on our intimate knowledge and fondness for all corners of Grand Rapids and its surrounding neighborhoods, we decided to create a Grand Rapids area map of our own, based on our own experiences buying and selling property and counseling real estate clients throughout Grand Rapids and the greater Grand Rapids communities.

Here follows SVG’s very own “Map of Grand…

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