Corewell Drive? Health system requests road name change
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Corewell Health is asking the city of Grand Rapids to rename a portion of Fairbanks Street after the health care system.
Corewell has asked that Fairbanks Street from Ionia Avenue to Bond Avenue be renamed as Corewell Drive. The health care system and its subsidiaries own all of the property on both sides of the two-block stretch, the city engineer noted during a public hearing on the matter during the City Commission meeting Tuesday.
Holly Sullivan, the vice president of system brand and marketing for Corewell Health, said the name change would offer a “sense of pride” for its team members.
“The proposed name change helps to formalize Corewell Health’s place as a destination for team members and community partners as they come together in our location for onboarding, for education, for collaboration, for training and as a place of interaction and connection. The change helps team members to associate with the community and the surrounding neighborhoods,” she said.
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She added Corewell Health hopes the community sees the health system as “rooted in Grand Rapids.”
During the public hearing, a handful of residents spoke in opposition of the change.
“I think this is nothing more than a vanity project of Corewell Health,” one woman said.
Another speaker, who said he was a 16-year-old Boy Scout, suggested the street should instead be named in honor of health care workers.
“The street should not be named after the hospital. The street should be named after the doctors within it, the doctors who risk their lives doing this, the doctors who go above and beyond speaking out, who become a part of the community,” he said. “It should be about the persons themselves, not the corporation.”
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