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Every Town Deserves Great Architecture In Flint and beyond, Shannon Easter White, B.S. ’00, M.Arch ’03, brings critical thinking, design flair, and FUN TO BE CLEAR, A BUILDING’S aesthetic matters a great deal to Shannon Easter White, B.S. ’00, M.Arch ’03. Her firm’s name is FUNchitecture (pronounced funkitecture). Its tagline is work that makes you smile, and that work is award-winning. But really, White sees herself as a problem solver. “Architecture is about getting butts in seats at a concert hall; it’s about effectively and efficiently treating patients to drive down healthcare costs, and making somebody feel included and mindful in a place of worship. Beyond what a building looks like, architecture is about complex problem solving,” she says. In her hometown of Flint, Michigan, and beyond, White has developed a reputation for doing just that. Beyond the water crisis that put Flint in the international spotlight, Flint has seen tough times recently. One result is a dwindling tax base that makes funding scarce for renovations and new construction. So White has become savvy at leveraging tax credits and structuring finance deals to launch projects and move them forward. “I get calls where the client says, ‘I’m contacting you because I know you know how to do this,’” she says. One example is Northern Market, in the northwest Michigan town of Grayling. While the area is rich with farmers, they have few options for selling goods locally. Shipping them three hours south to Detroit’s Eastern Market is inefficient and creates a “dead leg” when empty trucks return. White worked with community leaders, farmers, and distributors to design the market, which will hopefully open in 2021 and is expected to become a local hub and a tourist destination. Besides its proximity to I-75, 48
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which brings tourists “up north,” the design boasts a variety of attractions beyond the farmers’ market vendors — including a play area; restaurants; and the opportunity to see USDA-certified production facilities for eggs, maple syrup, apple cider, and honey in action. In addition, Northern Market houses training facilities for food preparation and safety, farm and garden education, and other agricultural trades. Detroit-based Leonardo’s Produce will truck food to northern Michigan and return to Detroit, bringing northwest-Michigan products to sell at Eastern Market and returning with southern-Michigan-grown products not available in Grayling. “It took getting many minds together to think through problems like transportation, logistics, access to healthy food, and more that originated because people recognized Grayling needed a farmers’ market,” White says. White’s leadership with a farmers’ market closer to home had put her on the radar for the folks in Grayling. She had a longstanding relationship with the Flint Farmers’ Market, so as the market outgrew its old space, they asked her to help them figure out what was next. Since the Flint Farmers’ Market building was nearly 100 years old, expansion would require extensive renovation to bring it up to code. White, the market’s leadership, and the developers financing the deal saw the potential in relocating to a nearby warehouse that had been vacated by the defunct Flint Journal newspaper. Although the move would be less than a mile, it met public resistance. First, there was a great deal of nostalgia for the old space, and the move was seen as further evidence that Flint was losing its grip on its proud history. Second, one of the leaders of Uptown Investment Corporation, which had assumed oversight of the market from
