Press Photo/Katy BatdorffLee Middleman cuts custom upholstery for a wing chair at Kindel Furnature Company Wednesday. Middleman was relieved to learn that her work week but not her job will be cut as the company weathers the economic downturn.

GRAND RAPIDS -- Lee Middleman breathed a sigh of relief after she learned her workweek, not her job, would be cut.

"We thought it would be worse," said Middleman, 61, who has cut upholstery at Kindel Furniture Co. for nearly 14 years.

Kindel said this week it was responding to flat sales by laying off about 15 percent of its 130 workers and instituting a four-day workweek for the remaining hourly employees.

The move will reduce facility and labor costs. While officials don't know how long the shortened schedule will last, similar efforts in the past have stretched to few months.

GRAND RAPIDS -- A push for another version of the four-day workweek picked up momentum during the summer, sparked by then $4-a-gallon gas prices.

More than 2,500 state employees took Gov. Jennifer Granholm's offer in July to go to four-day, 40-hour workweeks to cut down on commute costs.

GRAND RAPIDS -- One of downtown's higher-profile eyesores could be transformed into apartments and retail space.

The five-story Kendall Building, empty at 16 Monroe Center NW for much of the past three decades, is under contract to be sold to Virgin Soil Development's Kendall Renaissance, LLC.

Virgin Soil's Brice Bossardet said the $3.5 million to $4 million renovation is expected to create 12 two-bedroom apartments and two ground-floor retail spaces.

Press Photo/Rex LarsenKyle Kammeraad, of Whitehall, who lost his job as working for a GM supplier, waits with others for hours to get into the packed unemployment insurance agency office on Plainfield Ave. NE. " I haven't had a check in months and money is getting tight," he said.

GRAND RAPIDS -- Even as people for the third straight day waited in line four or five hours to resolve unemployment issues, officials Wednesday scrambled to prop up the backlogged state unemployment insurance system.

Press Photo/Mark CopierA demolition crane Wednesday takes a bite from the roof of Richard DeVos' former summer home on Lake Macatawa in Holland. No plans for the site have been filed with the city of Holland.

A view of Lake Macatawa is opening up along Holland's toney South Shore Drive.

Billionaire and Amway co-founder Richard DeVos' former 12,146-square-foot waterfront mansion -- five bedrooms and 8 1/2 bathrooms -- and a guest house are being demolished.

This free tour and program focusing on the gloriously restored D.A. Blodgett Home/Inner City Christian Federation on Thursday sounds like it would be of interest to some of the readers of the Corner:

Here are the details:

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration said Wednesday it won't finish implementing new vehicle fuel-efficiency rules, leaving the issue to the incoming Obama administration.

Nissan Frontier

WASHINGTON -- Nissan Motor Co. is recalling more than 240,000 trucks in 20 cold weather states to fix a problem that could prevent front air bags from deploying in a crash.

The government said in a posting on its Web site Wednesday that the recall affects the Frontier, Pathfinder and Xterra from the 2005-2009 model years.

Press File PhotoWaiting on expansion for BOB.

We'll need to wait until February to get a look at Greg Gilmore's BOB expansion plans.

While the Grand Rapids restaurateur exercised the option to buy the surface parking lots adjacent to the BOB for $1.9 million, he said he is no longer on the agenda for Thursday's the Parking Commission meeting. Instead, he'll meet with the Parking Commission Feb. 12.

During the past college football season, fans at Spartan Stadium wore T-shirts emblazoned with this cryptic message: "Bring FRIB to our crib."

No, FRIB isn't the nickname of some hotshot high school player Michigan State University's football team was trying to recruit.

FRIB stands for the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, a $550 million project that Michigan State was awarded by the Department of Energy on Dec. 11.

Press Photo/Lance Wynn The registration desk, left, and a restaurant area, right, in the new Hyatt Place hotel in Wyoming.

WYOMING -- The new Hyatt Place opening today along M-6 in Metro Health Village is a one-of-a-kind for West Michigan, its operators say.

Featuring self-directed, touch-screen registration kiosks and on-demand food ordering, the lobby -- or "gallery" -- of the five-story, 113-room hotel resembles a coffeehouse.

"It's kind of like a mixture of a Panera Bread, a Starbucks and an upscale airplane club," said R. Morgan Burkett, president and chief executive officer of the hotel's management company, Legacy Hospitality.

Press Photo/Hollyn JohnsonMore than 600 people took a ticket to wait for as long as five hours to make an unemployment claim Tuesday afternoon at the Michigan Unemployment Office.

Here's a tip: Get to the unemployment office before 3 p.m. After that, the doors are locked and nobody gets in.

Tuesday, it didn't really matter, though. The one-story office building at 3391 Plainfield Ave. NE was crammed with hundreds of jobless people, from the counters to the double-glass doors out into the parking lot.

Just before 3 p.m., you would be the 637th person in line. Soon, another 10 or 20 more people would shove in behind you before the security guard locked the door.

Press File PhotoRevelers gather at Rosa Parks Circle on New Year's Eve. Police estimated the crowd at 10,000.

GRAND RAPIDS -- It appears last week's first lighted ball drop in downtown Grand Rapids had local businesses ringing in the New Year with a big ka-ching.

By most accounts, the free New Year's Eve event at Rosa Parks Circle drew thousands of people downtown who opened their wallets for local merchants.

"It was a grand time had by all," said Dean Juth, owner of Z's Restaurant and Bar, and Zeller's party store on Louis Campau Promenade NW. "What was unique about it was people were spending money."

Press Photo/Jon M BrouwerWalkers pass store fronts inside Rogers Plaza on Tuesday.

WYOMING -- Rogers Plaza, the area's first enclosed shopping mall, is headed toward foreclosure, continuing a cascade of bad news that has plagued Wyoming's 28th Street SW business district in recent months.

A federal court judge in New York in December approved transferring the shopping center, home to a Family Fare grocery store, MC Sports, AJ Wright, Officemax, Big Boy and an Old Country Buffet, among other shops, back to Flint-based Citizens Bank and another investor.

The stores within the 460,000-square-foot retail center, which is about 74 percent occupied, continue to operate.

Barry Raterink

GRAND RAPIDS -- The local multi-million dollar scam at U.S. Signal pales compared to the $50 billion allegedly swindled by Wall Street money manager Bernard Madoff. But it carried disastrous potential to workers and their families -- and exasperation for a public weary of high-life scandals.

"The citizens of this country are tired of privileged executives living lives of unbridled greed," U.S. Signal owner Richard Postma told a judge Tuesday.

WYOMING -- Six. That's how many light-emitting diode, or LED, billboards could fit along U.S. 131 through Wyoming under rules approved by the city.

But whether Wyoming's 4,000-foot minimum spacing becomes the area standard -- or other local communities allow the signs at all -- remains to be seen.

An ongoing federal study, due at the end of the year, also could play a role as Grand Rapids, Kentwood, Walker, Plainfield Township and others look to govern the new technology.