Project Portfolio
Restore the Rapids, Grand River
Material sourcing, hauling, and stockpiling for the project bringing the Grand River's namesake rapids back to downtown Grand Rapids.
The Grand River once ran through downtown Grand Rapids over natural limestone rapids, the same rapids that gave the city its name. Over the years, low-head dams altered the river and covered much of that natural structure. The Restore the Rapids project, led by the City of Grand Rapids alongside Grand Rapids Whitewater, is rebuilding those river features in two phases, the Lower Reach and the Upper Reach, to improve public safety, restore fish and mussel habitat, and reopen the river for public use.
Rebuilding a river structure like this takes more than engineering plans. It takes the right natural material, sourced in the right sizes, delivered where the contractor needs it, when they need it.
MarJo Material Supplier handled the sourcing and logistics side of the project. We were not the general contractor and we did not build the river structures ourselves. That work belonged to Taplin. Our job was to make sure the right material was found, moved, and staged so their crews could keep building.
Sourcing
The rapids structures are built from Alluvium, natural stone and gravel deposited by moving water over time. Different structures in the river call for different sizes of material depending on how each one is engineered, so no single source could cover the whole job. We drew on our network of suppliers and pits across West Michigan to locate material in the sizes the project needed, coordinating multiple sources rather than relying on one.
Hauling & Stockpiling
Once material was sourced, our fleet hauled it to the project site and stockpiled it by type and size. Keeping the different Alluvium sizes organized on site meant Taplin's crews could pull the correct material for each structure as work progressed, without waiting on a delivery or sorting through mixed piles.
River Removal
Rebuilding the rapids also meant clearing material out of the river. That included material excavated from the river bottom so new structures could be properly anchored, along with demolition material from the low-flow dams as they were removed. We handled the trucking and transport of that material off site.
Get the right material to the right place at the right time, even on a project this particular about specifications.
A public river restoration project does not leave room for the wrong material showing up, or for a jobsite sitting idle waiting on a load. Coordinating several material sizes from multiple West Michigan sources, then keeping hauling and stockpiling on schedule for the contractor, is the kind of work MarJo has been doing since 1971.
The Grand River's rapids are part of what gave this city its name and its identity. Being part of the material supply chain that helped bring them back is the kind of project MarJo is proud to have supported, and it reflects the same work we do on job sites across West Michigan every day: source the right material, get it where it needs to go, and keep the project moving.
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