Walk Harvey Street on any weekday morning right now and you'll pass at least one storefront with paper still taped over the glass. A patio frame with no furniture yet. A sign that says "opening soon" without a date under it. If you've lived in Hudsonville for a while, you've probably stopped noticing the construction fencing near Terra Square. It's been part of the scenery for years.
That's about to change, and not because a few businesses happened to pick the same season to open. The paper-covered windows on Harvey Street right now are the last piece of a plan the city started building in 2018, before most of the people who will eat at these new places had any reason to care about a street called Harvey.
A street built before it had anything to do
Harvey Street is what planners call a woonerf, a Dutch term for a "shared street" where cars, bikes, and pedestrians all use the same space without one dominating the others. Hudsonville built the first phase of it in 2018, connecting Family Fare to Terra Square with string lights, a splash pad, a pocket park, and paver walkways designed to slow traffic down and give people a reason to stand still.
At the time, the street didn't have much to be shared for. The city had just built the infrastructure. The businesses that would make people actually want to walk it were still years away. Then-mayor Mark Northrup put the old problem plainly when reporters asked why the city was investing in a street redesign instead of, say, parking: "We lost our identity. The downtown became what I call a drive-through city." Chicago Drive had carried traffic through Hudsonville since the 1950s, and Harvey Street was the city's bet that a downtown could be rebuilt somewhere else, on a smaller scale, on purpose.
City Manager Patrick Waterman described the goal a little differently around the same time, saying the city was aiming for "a traditional downtown development pattern that communities of old had." A state grant of $1 million helped fund the second phase of the woonerf, stretching the shared street further and setting up land for what came next: the Hudson Center, a three-story mixed-use building with ground-floor retail and upper-level apartments, and eventually the Terra Station project a few years later.
None of that guaranteed anyone would show up. Infrastructure is patient that way. It sits and waits for private investment to catch up to it. On Harvey Street, that catch-up is happening right now, in a single season.
Three things landing on the same 90 days
Three separate projects, unrelated to each other on paper, are converging on Harvey Street this fall.
- Pinwheel Kitchen, a fast-casual spinoff from New Holland Brewing built around the brewery's popular pizza pinwheel appetizer, is opening inside Terra Square at 3380 Chicago Drive. New Holland's president and CEO Brett VanderKamp said the timing has as much to do with the street as the food: "Hudsonville's energy and events make this the perfect next chapter for the Pinwheel model."
- Huddy's, a new ice cream shop, held its ribbon cutting on Harvey Street back on April 22 and has spent the months since working with the city to build out a patio directly on the woonerf. The city's own spring newsletter noted the shop started with Hudsonville Ice Cream and plans to expand its menu as the year goes on.
- Terra Station, a mixed-use building meant to close the gap at the far end of the walkable stretch, is expected to finish construction by fall 2026. Developer-side reporting on the project quoted two Harvey Street business owners on what it means for foot traffic. Cassie Ghent, who owns Fernweh Clothing Shop, put it simply: "There's always something going on right in this central area." Becky Ferreira, a barista at 317 Coffee, was more direct about what the street has been missing: "It needs to have more places to go, places to eat."
None of these three businesses needed the others to open. But they're all opening onto the same 500 feet of pavement, on the same stretch of street the city started clearing space for eight years ago.
Urban HayDay lands on the street it's named for
The clearest sign that Harvey Street has arrived is the calendar. Urban HayDay, Hudsonville's annual free fall festival run by the Hudsonville Area Chamber of Commerce, returns Saturday, October 10, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. This year's listing pins the event's address directly at 5379 Harvey Street, on the woonerf itself.
In past years the festival has sprawled across the general downtown footprint, with barrel train rides in the Terra Square parking lot and hayrides running along School Avenue and Kelly Street. The event has grown steadily each year, and past editions have featured a 24-foot climbing wall sponsored by Holland Hospital, tractor-pull games backed by Todd Wenzel Chevrolet, barrel train rides from Great Lakes Family Dentistry, dance performances from Ohana Dance, and the crowd favorite: a pumpkin dropped from the top of a fire department ladder truck every 30 minutes. If this year follows the same pattern, expect a similar lineup of local sponsors and activities, just now centered on the exact stretch of pavement the city spent nearly a decade building.
That's not a small detail. A festival named for a street finally having its official address on that street, the same season three new businesses open onto it, is the kind of coincidence that isn't really a coincidence. It's a plan reaching the point where you stop having to explain what it was for.
What this actually changes if you live nearby
If your routine already runs through downtown Hudsonville, here's what's worth adjusting for this fall.
Parking near Terra Square will be tighter on weekends once Pinwheel Kitchen and Huddy's are both drawing foot traffic at the same time the DDA-owned public lot fills for Urban HayDay. If you're headed downtown on October 10 specifically, plan to walk in from a side street rather than circling for a spot near Harvey itself.
Huddy's patio construction means the sidewalk in that stretch may still have some staging through early fall before it's fully open for sitting. Worth checking before you plan an evening ice cream stop there.
Terra Station wrapping construction this fall should mean less noise and fewer detours on that end of the walkable stretch by winter, which matters if you've been rerouting around it for a while now, the way most regulars have.
None of this requires planning ahead the way a festival across town might. It's the opposite. It's your existing routine getting three new stops without you having to drive anywhere new to find them.
The bigger read
Cities plan infrastructure years before anyone can use it, and most of that time is invisible to residents unless you happen to notice the fencing. Harvey Street's woonerf has been sitting mostly finished since its last major phase, waiting on the private side of the investment to show up. This fall it did, in a cluster: an ice cream shop, a brewery's spinoff kitchen, a finished mixed-use building, and a hometown festival that's now literally on the street it's named for.
If you've watched Harvey Street for years without much reason to walk it end to end, this is the season that changes. Not because the city built something new. Because the things the city built years ago finally have businesses to match them.
For everyday context on what living in Hudsonville looks like beyond one season's openings, our Hudsonville lifestyle guide and our Hudsonville neighborhood page cover the rest of the picture, from parks to school-adjacent streets to the pace of daily life here.
Emily Garcia Homes lives in these same neighborhoods, not just markets them. Dave grew up in this area and still walks Harvey Street the same way you do, watching the same storefronts change hands. If you ever want to talk about what a street like this means for home values nearby, or you're simply curious what's opening next, reach out to Emily and Dave. We're not going anywhere either.
