Two Grand Blanc Corners Changed Hands. Only One Went to Plan.

By Carrie Thompson, Strategic Marketing Real Estate Agent, eXp Realty | Grand Blanc & Genesee County, MI

The Crossbow Inn served its last customers on the night of Thursday, April 30, 2026, after nearly fifty years on Saginaw Street in downtown Grand Blanc. The closing was not a failure. It was a scheduled step. The restaurant was making room for La Piazza, a three-story mixed-use building, and the plan was to reopen inside it. (ABC12, April 30, 2026)

Carlette Broaddus, who has worked at the Crossbow for thirty years, told ABC12 in early April what the staff had been told. "We're just closing until they get the remodel done. I know Ziggy's is going to do their season but they plan on demolishing June 1 for us." (ABC12, April 9, 2026)

The June 1 demolition did not happen. Four weeks after the last dinner service, the project came apart.

The deal did not fall apart over zoning or financing

Developer Chuck Sekrenes told WNEM on May 28 that La Piazza had been canceled. He said the owners of Ziggy's Ice Cream of Grand Blanc are divorcing, and the property negotiation broke down inside that. He said they wanted $2 million for their portion of the site, over $1 million more than he was willing to pay. "I'm sorry that it didn't happen. I feel bad that we couldn't pull it off," Sekrenes told the station. The owner of Ziggy's did not respond to WNEM's request for comment. (WNEM, May 28, 2026)

ABC12 reported the next day in slightly different language, saying the developer described the project as "on hold for a while" while he redesigns a smaller building to sit only on the Crossbow land. Both reports agree on the substance: the version that spanned both properties is not being built. (ABC12, May 29, 2026)

It is worth sitting with what that means. A project the city had already approved site plans for, described in reporting as a $23 million building of roughly 47,000 to 48,000 square feet, did not stall on permits or interest rates or a market turning. It stalled on a property line between two adjacent owners.

Ziggy's changed its mind and opened anyway

Ziggy's had originally planned to stay closed for the 2026 season. It reopened instead, and ABC12 reported it was operating noon to 9 p.m. seven days a week and planning to continue through the summer. (ABC12, April 30, 2026)

So the corner ended the summer with the ice cream stand open and the fifty-year-old restaurant next door closed. That is the reverse of what was announced in April.

The Crossbow site is still getting built, just smaller and later

Sekrenes owns the Crossbow property and says he still intends to develop it. He told WNEM the replacement would be a mixed-use building of probably not more than 12,000 square feet, against the almost 47,000 square feet La Piazza would have been. (WNEM, May 28, 2026)

ABC12 added a detail that matters more than the square footage: he does not plan to begin designing the scaled-back building until next year. (ABC12, May 29, 2026)

The Crossbow is owned by Davy and Niki Kister. Their son Gavin works there as kitchen manager and cook, and told ABC12 on the last night that he expects a better chapter ahead. Broaddus said she plans to return when it reopens. As of the reporting, no completion date has been announced. (ABC12, April 30, 2026)

The other Saginaw Street corner is proceeding on schedule

One day after the Crossbow story broke in April, a second Grand Blanc restaurant corner changed hands. The Big Boy at Saginaw Street and Grand Blanc Road is closing and will be replaced by the fourteenth Anna's House, a breakfast and brunch chain, with ABC12 reporting it will open this fall in the existing building. (ABC12, April 10, 2026)

Two restaurant corners on the same street, both reported within two days of each other, both involving a longtime building changing hands. One is on track. The other emptied a fifty-year-old restaurant for a building whose design has not started.

What this actually says about Saginaw Street

Read together, the pattern is not decline. It is competition for a short list of proven addresses.

Anna's House did not build new. It took over a restaurant building at an intersection that has held a restaurant for decades. Sekrenes did not go looking for raw land. He went after two adjacent parcels that already had two working businesses on them. Both wanted the same thing: an address on Saginaw Street that had already demonstrated it could hold a business.

Empty storefronts mean nobody wants the address. A negotiation collapsing because two owners disagree about what their corner is worth means the opposite. The La Piazza failure was not a verdict on downtown Grand Blanc. It was a verdict on one parcel.

There is other movement on the same stretch. Grand Blanc officials discussed plans in April for a two-story office complex on vacant land between Burger King and the Scrub-A-Dub car wash, directly across Saginaw Street, with no construction timeline announced. Sophia's Kitchen closed for good on May 17 after twenty-six years. Irene's Craft Kitchen and Biergarten opened. And the city itself changed hands at the top: City Manager Wendy Jean-Buhrer stepped down after eleven years with a last day of June 1. (ABC12, April 9, 2026)

Where to check what is actually open

Downtown Grand Blanc has moved faster this year than most published roundups have kept up with, and April's version of the La Piazza story is still circulating as if nothing changed. The May reporting is the current state.

For development items, the City of Grand Blanc posts its own council and Brownfield Redevelopment Authority materials at cityofgrandblancmi.gov, which is where these things surface before they reach the news. Individual restaurants tend to announce on Facebook first.

Watching which buildings on a street hold their tenants, which corners get bid on, and which parcels sit tied up is the same habit that tells you which streets hold their home values. That is the part of Grand Blanc I pay attention to every week. If you want to talk about what any of it means for a specific address, call or text me at (810) 893-3269.

About Carrie Thompson

Carrie Thompson is a licensed Michigan Realtor (#6501338662) with eXp Realty, serving Grand Blanc, Fenton, Davison, Linden, Flushing, Swartz Creek, Burton, Goodrich, Holly, and Genesee County. Known as "Your Favorite Property Girl," she brings a strategic marketing approach to every listing and every buyer search. Call or text (810) 893-3269.