The Hudsonville Community Fair wrapped its 2026 run on Saturday, six days of livestock judging, grandstand tractor pulls, and a midway that's looked roughly the same for generations. It started in 1933, inspired by the Chicago World's Fair, and it originally ran three days in September before eventually settling into its current late-August slot. Nearly a century later, the format hasn't moved much. Same rodeo. Same monster trucks. Same reason 80,000 people show up every year: because it's exactly what it was last year.
Drive half a mile from the fairgrounds into downtown Hudsonville this same week, though, and you'd have seen something that doesn't repeat. A $32 million apartment and retail project nearing the end of its construction schedule. A four-month-old ice cream shop with a line stretching past its own door. A downtown business owner describing a stretch of road that used to be nothing but used car lots. Hudsonville has always had one clock that resets every August. This year is the first year it's obvious the town also has a second one, and it runs on its own schedule entirely.
A Fair Built On Sameness, With One New Wrinkle
There's a reason people love a fair that doesn't change. The dog show, sheep show, beef show, and hog show are still there. So is the frog race and the turtle race, the pedal pull, the demolition-style Trailer Trash N Bash finale, and a rodeo that anchors the grandstand schedule most nights of the week. If you grew up going to the Hudsonville Community Fair, the version you attended this year probably matched your memory almost beat for beat.
The one genuine addition arrived two days before the gates opened. Saturday, August 22 was the first running of the Hudsonville Community Fair 5K, presented by Renewed Physical Therapy, a local clinic that hadn't existed as a fair sponsor before this year. The course started and finished at the fairgrounds and wound past Gary Byker Memorial Library, Hudsonville Christian School, and Hillcrest Christian Reformed Church before looping back. Roughly 1,500 runners were expected, with each entrant choosing which of three local education foundations their registration would benefit: Unity Christian, Hudsonville Public, or Jenison Public. It's a small thing next to nine decades of tractor pulls, but it's worth noticing as the first new tradition the Fair has added in a long time, and it says something that the sponsor is a business that only exists because of what's happening a few blocks away in downtown.
What Finished While The Midway Was Running
Terra Station, the mixed-use project going up near School Avenue and Prospect, has been in the works for more than two and a half years and is expected to wrap construction this fall, which puts its completion squarely on top of this year's Fair Week. The project breaks down like this:
- 141 total apartment units: 36 studios, 59 one-bedrooms, and 46 two-bedrooms
- 4,600 square feet of ground-floor retail space
- 202 parking spaces, a bicycle service station, and six electric vehicle charging spots
- A total investment of $32 million
Chris Veneklasen, whose company is building it, has described the intent plainly: the goal isn't to feel like a huge development dropped into a small town, but to have "a sense of place, and a sense of community." Two business owners already downtown put it in more practical terms. Cassie Ghent, who owns Fernweh Clothing Shop, said there's "always something going on right in this central area." Becky Ferreira, a barista at 317 Coffee, was more specific about what she wants next: more walkability, more shops, "more places to go, places to eat."
That's the tell. Terra Station isn't downtown's first project. It's the one that finishes the sentence the last several projects started.
The Guy Who Remembers The Car Lots
Kong Khammanivong owns Rock n' Thai downtown, and he's watched the change from the inside for years. He remembers driving through as a kid, when the same stretch that's now filling in with restaurants and retail was "a bunch of old car lots and little commercial buildings." His read on it now is simple: "Things has changed majorly since back in the days."
The clearest recent example opened in April. Huddy's, a locally owned ice cream shop, held its ribbon cutting on April 22 at 5340 Plaza Ave, on Harvey Street in the heart of downtown. Co-owner Matt VanWoerkom, who also sits on the Downtown Development Authority board, said the goal from the start was building a place for people to gather. There's a layer of local history in the name and the menu: Hudsonville Ice Cream got its start with local farmers crafting flavors back in 1926. The company's operations have since moved to Holland, but the connection to the town that gave it its name is still the reason a shop like Huddy's makes sense here and not somewhere else.
In his DDA capacity, VanWoerkom has talked about the growth in broader terms too, tying it to the jobs and foot traffic that follow when businesses choose to open downtown rather than somewhere else. City leaders describe the underlying strategy the same way: building a destination, a place people choose to spend time, rather than a strip of storefronts people pass through on the way somewhere else.
The Next Thing Already Has A Name
None of this happened by accident, and none of it is finished. Hudsonville's growth has followed a master plan the city adopted years ago and has stuck to without much deviation, even through the usual pushback from residents worried that growth changes the character of the place. That discipline earned the city a Michigan Municipal League Community Excellence Award, recognition specifically for the boldness of the downtown effort. Mayor Mark Northrup has described the city's growth as deliberate rather than reactive, noting Hudsonville is on pace to grow from roughly 7,500 residents to more than 9,000, driven largely by the same wave of housing development that includes Terra Station.
The next visible marker already has a name: the Village Green. City leadership describes it as the piece still missing from downtown, a central open space designed to be the town's actual gathering point, built for markets, programming, and everyday use rather than one-off events. It's meant to work with the buildings around it rather than compete with them, which tracks with everything else that's happened downtown over the past two years. First the restaurants and retail. Then the housing. Now a public space designed to hold it all together.
Put the two calendars side by side and the difference is obvious. The Fair's calendar is a loop: same week, same acts, same reason to show up every August. Downtown's calendar is linear: master plan in place, Terra Station finishing this fall, a Village Green named as the next target, and a population that's grown by roughly a fifth in a matter of years to match. Fair Week will always be the loudest week on the Hudsonville calendar. It just isn't the week that tells you the most about where the town is actually headed.
If you've lived here long enough to remember the car lots Kong Khammanivong is talking about, or you're new enough that Terra Station is the first thing you've watched go up from groundbreaking to grand opening, the same question tends to follow: what does all of this mean for what a home here is actually worth right now? That's a fair question for a different post, and it's one Ann Huizen spends her days answering block by block across Hudsonville and the rest of West Michigan. If you're curious what the changes downtown mean for your own street, her instant home valuation tool is a good place to start.
