MERIDIAN TOWNSHIP - New businesses are opening just in time for spring, and like the showers and flowers that will come in April and May, more than 130 jobs will also be blossoming in the local area.

“We’re doing really well, 30 new businesses opened last year here in Meridian Township, we’ve got at least five or six active new development projects and several on the way,” says Peter Menser, Meridian Township Associate Planner.

Meridian Township is continuing to make improvements with new development and numerous redevelopment projects.

“The good news is that we’ve made tremendous progress in the Lansing area and across Michigan in the last six years, the bad news is that that’s coming off a very hard decade, in the first decade of the century Michigan lost 860,000 jobs we’ve gained more than half of those lost jobs back,” says Charles Ballard, an economics professor at Michigan State University.

Menser says Meridian Township has been working on placemaking, making the community the best place to live in, a place where spouses would want to live at.

“I know that it’s a cliche but Meridian Township is a great place to raise a family, to locate a business here and to really live at all phases in your life. The demographics here are just so outstanding that we pop out on a map. We have really high education, high incomes and it really pops to people when they want to locate here,” says Menser.

With over 30 new businesses opening up within the last year, Meridian is now on the radar for future businesses to invest in the community.

“Every time a new business opens up that generates additional activity, they’re going to hire some people who may not have been hired before and those folks will have more money in their pocket, they’ll spend it, they’ll go to the movies, they’ll go to get their car fixed, they’ll buy extras and that might generate additional employment elsewhere,” says Ballard.

The variety of business to spend that extra money at is increasing.

“We’re getting not only the first tier of kind of the franchises kind of all the big names that you see here but now we’re getting other ones like Chick-fil-A for example that had never been, they had one store in Michigan and now where did they go they went here and whole foods to build their second or third store around they’re coming to this area,” says Menser.

Whole Foods will be opening this April creating more than 130 new jobs for the local community.

“One new business that I’m looking forward to because it’s on my way home from work is the whole foods that's going to be opening up in just a couple weeks, that will employ a fair number of people and I think that’s and some of those jobs will be the kind of jobs that might want to apply for,” says Ballard.

With Meridian Township being just a few miles away from the campus of Michigan State University, it creates a diverse population living and working throughout the community.

“Students at MSU certainly have some influence on the economy, one thing that they do is they create sort of a seasonal aspect which is not necessarily there in every community because our population drops a whole lot when school is done in May,” says Ballard.

Seasonal jobs are becoming more common to accommodate the student demographic at MSU. Jobs that do not require high-skill training and are part-time mostly appeal to the younger generation. The new Whole Foods store is projected to hire a lot of students.

“If it (Whole Foods) employs 130 people like I said you'll have some ripple effects so those 130 people will have some more money than they previously had, they'll be able to spend it in a variety of ways, that will put more money to the cash registers of those businesses who might in turn hire some additional workers so the ultimate total effects go beyond the immediate effect of that one business,” says Ballard.

With most students living between the Capitol Building in Lansing and the Meridian Mall, that strip has become a magnet for new businesses to thrive. New busing systems is making it easier for people to transport back and forth between the two areas in a timely manner.

“I think we’re going to see a lot of development the big push in the last four or five years is Grand River corridor and this connection between the capitol building downtown lansing and the meridian mall here as being this primary commercial corridor in the greater Lansing region,” says Menser.

Students not only the population around Meridian Township they also influence the businesses that open up in the community as well.

“The students have an effect on the kinds of jobs that we have at least in East Lansing, you see bars and restaurants of a particular type, you see tanning salons in greater numbers than you might see in other communities there are certain businesses that are catering to the 18-23 year old crowd,” says Ballard.

Another focus in Meridian Township is making it a place that has something to offer in all transitions of life.

“You’re in your twenties you're just getting out of school and you say I want to go somewhere fun and we want that place fun to be right here, so you're not looking to go to North Carolina or California or some of these other places that offer this kind of dynamic lifestyle, we can offer that here in Michigan and retain more graduates and make the economy more dynamic,” says Menser.