Dealmaker was instrumental in downtown's development
By Jim Harger
The Grand Rapids Press
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) - As he posed for a photograph on the 17th floor deck of Bridgewater Place, Ray Kisor surveyed the downtown landscape beneath him with an experienced eye.
"It's all here, isn't it?" said Kisor, who is retiring from Colliers International, a commercial real estate brokerage he helped build, along with much of downtown Grand Rapids over the past 40 years.
Kisor, 70, can point to almost any major downtown development and claim a role in putting together the deal that made it happen, according to The Grand Rapids Press.
Much of his insiders' knowledge of downtown real estate can be traced to his friendship with Richard Gillett, the visionary chairman and president of Old Kent Bank (now Fifth Third Bank), Kisor said.
Both owned cattle farms in Vergennes Township, near Lowell in northeast Kent County.
"He raised white-faced Herefords and I raised purebred black Angus," Kisor said. "We'd meet on Saturday mornings in his barn and talk about what to do with downtown Grand Rapids."
Gillett was the man who convinced Amway Corp.'s co-founders to buy and redevelop the aging Pantlind Hotel, voiding a deal he had to sell the landmark to Ramada Inn, Kisor said. That commitment became the linchpin for much of the development that followed.
Kisor also was involved in assembling the land for the L.V. Eberhard Center, which brought Grand Valley State University downtown in the 1980s.
"I worked seven years putting that together," he says. He also helped assemble the property that became the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum.
Looking up Michigan Street's Medical Mile, Kisor helped assemble the land for the massive medical office complex that includes Michigan State University's College of Human Medicine.
Along downtown's Monroe Center, he was in on the effort that put together a pedestrian mall in the late 1970s - and the efforts to unravel it 17 years later.
Kisor recalls the deals that put the land together to revive the Heartside Neighborhood south of downtown and the Brassworks Building, which helped launch the redevelopment of Monroe Avenue north of downtown.
Some of those tales will go untold. "I know where all the bodies are buried. I just don't want to dig them up," he says, leaning back in his chair with a smile.
The Ohio native came to Grand Rapids in December of 1968 as a young Ohio University graduate hired by the Shell Oil Co. to manage service station leasing operations. He then joined the Lanning Corp., which leased sites across the U.S. for Kmart stores.
When Lanning rejected one of his property deals in Johnstown, Pa., Kisor said he and his cohorts put together their own deal to develop a shopping center, which they owned and managed for the next 25 years.
With the cash flow from that successful venture coming in, Kisor said he joined Dodgson Realty Co. in the mid-1970s, where he and partner Bill Bowling became the area's leading commercial brokers.
"What I knew was real estate. And I knew I didn't want to travel anymore," he said of his decision to stay in Grand Rapids.
While he was active in listing and leasing, Kisor said he never took an equity position in Grand Rapids real estate except for the office building that served as their company headquarters.
That philosophy helped him avoid the potential for conflicts of interest as he helped commercial tenants find new homes, he said.
"You have to understand what their issues and their needs are," he said. "Don't try to sell them something that doesn't fit. We'll work with clients four, five or six years to find that, if necessary."
Looking ahead, Kisor said he may make some investments and keep his hand in the real estate market.
"I do plan to still have a finger in the industry," he said. "I'm not out of real estate forever, but I do have plans to play a lot more golf."
Published: Tue, Jan 06, 2015
