"Next Fall Davenport-McLachlan Institute students will go to school right at the “new heart and center” of Grand Rapids. Construction is soon to be underway at the southeast corner of Division Ave. and Fulton St. E., for a new modern Davenport school, according to information give by President M.E. Davenport to STUDENTS’ LIFE.

The location seems particularly well suited for a business school. The traffic center and activity of the city have been moving up Monroe Ave. for some time. The climax came last year with the announcement that Herpolsheimer’s, largest department store in Western Michigan, would build on the northwest corner of Division Ave. and Fulton St. Herpolsheimer’s expects to have the building completed by January 1, 1949.

The Grand Rapids Herald will neighbor the new Davenport school to the east, and the old Cody Hotel is situated across Division Ave.

W.P. McLaughlin, well-known Grand Rapids architect, designed the building and the MacWhirter Construction Company has been given the building contract. It will be of steel and concrete construction and have a modernistic exterior. The building is to have a frontage of 50 feet on Fulton St. and 160 feet on Division Ave.

The old Livingston Hotel, until it was destroyed by fire 25 years ago, occupied the new Davenport location."

From Students’ Life, April 1948, pg 1, written and edited by the students and faculty of Davenport-McLachlan Institute.

Note: The original plans were for a six-story building plus a basement, seen here in the architect's rendering, but a shortage of building materials after WWII limited the structure to two strories and a basement.