Conservative think tank gets new Grand Rapids HQ

Institute attempts to blend Christian doctrines with free market economies

By Jim Harger
MLive.com

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) — The Acton Institute’s dream of becoming a larger player in the world of social policy think tanks is taking shape in west Michigan.
Kris Alan Mauren, Acton’s Executive Director and co-founder, said the $6 million renovation will help the conservative think tank raise its profile on the international stage while remaining in Grand Rapids, where it was founded 22 years ago.

“This is a great place to be and it doesn’t stop us from being the international organization we want to be,” Mauren said. The Acton Institute plans to move into its new home when construction is complete near the end of this year.

With 24,000 square feet of space on two floors, the new headquarters will be a welcome relief for Acton’s 40 full-time researchers and support staff, currently crammed into 9,000 square feet on the third floor of the Waters Building.

The new facility will include a 200-seat auditorium for lectures and will include the latest digital broadcasting and recording equipment to send those lectures and other digitized presentations around the world.

With more than 650,000 Facebook “friends” around the globe, the Acton Institute is finding a receptive audience for its philosophy, which attempts to blend Christian doctrines with free market economics.

In January, the Think Tanks and Civil Society Program at the University of Pennsylvania placed Acton at No. 12 on its global ranking of “Top Thirty Social Policy Think Tanks” and at No. 39 on its ranking of “Top Fifty Think Tanks in the United States.”

Acton officials say their website, Acton.org, attracted more than 1 million unique visitors and 2 million page views in 2011. Its columnists and bloggers have been featured in a variety of conservative publications, included the National Review, The American Spectator and the Wall Street Journal.

The institute’s Acton University, founded in 2005, attracted nearly 800 participants from 70 nations in June and hopes to grow to more than 1,000 participants by 2014, according to institute officials. In 2011, the institute launched “PovertyCure,” its largest international effort to date.

Co-founded by a Catholic priest, the Rev. Robert Sirico, the Acton’s message has found a welcome home in West Michigan’s Calvinist circles

The $10 million fundraising campaign for the building project and program expansion is being co-chaired by Amway Corp. co-founded Richard and Helen DeVos, industrialist John Kennedy III and oilman Sid Jansma Jr.

Construction workers are giving the former office building and department store a facelift on three side and have gutted the building’s first two floors as part of a $6.3 million renovation.

Built in 1929 as the Watson Building, the building is being restored to its original look on the outside. The marble facing applied during its days as a Jacobson’s Department Store are being removed and replaced with a limestone façade and larger windows that will reflect its original character.

Inside, the building will be thoroughly modernized. The southern part of the main floor, which originally stepped down two feet, has been removed so it can be replaced with a floor on the same level as the Fulton Street level.

Project Manager Tom Vogt said the floor is being replaced mainly to give them more room for the auditorium on the lower level. “It also makes the building a lot more accessible,” he said.

Only the building’s east wall, which is filled with a 2010 ArtPrize entry and the upper floor, used by the West Michigan Center for Arts and Technology, (WMCAT) are unaffected by the renovation.

WMCAT, a nonprofit organization that helps students stay in school through exposure to the arts and aid under- or unemployed adults through technical skills training, has a long-term lease to remain in the building, said Acton spokesman John Couretas.