This Former TGI Friday's Restaurant Is Being Repurposed As A Luxury Pet Hotel
The conversion of a former TGI Friday's building in Michigan into a luxury pet hotel is just the latest adaptive reuse of a former restaurant for pet boarding
When the TGI Friday’s restaurant in Kentwood, MI closed in 2020 locals did not expect the property to remain vacant for long.
After all, the restaurant was an outlot to the highly trafficked Woodland Mall.
At one of the busiest intersections in the Grand Rapids area.
And across the street from where Chick-Fil-A, BJ’s Brewhouse and Chase Bank recently opened in newly developed properties.
It has taken longer than expected but the former TGI Friday’s building will soon be re-occupied.
Except that it will not be a restaurant or retail tenant:
Instead it is set to become a luxury pet hotel.
Franchisees of K9 Resorts are in the process of repurposing the former TGI Friday’s building as the K9 Resorts Luxury Pet Hotel of Grand Rapids.
K9 Resorts has more than 45 locations across the U.S. that provide "resort quality" vacations and doggie daycare.
K9’s Grand Rapids franchisees are now in the process of converting the ~9,300 square foot former TGI Friday's building into a luxury dog resort with ~100 "cage free" overnight lodging units, multiple play areas and grooming/wash facilities.
A ~3,000 square foot, fenced-in outdoor exercise area will also be added on the southeast side of the former restaurant.
Other upgrades to the building include extensive soundproofing, a brand new HVAC equipment and a UV air purification system.
The TGI Friday’s-to-K9 Pet Resort conversion is expected to be complete and open to the public by Summer 2025.
It is not the only former restaurant to be converted into a pet boarding or dog daycare facility.
This former Panera Bread in Connecticut was repurposed for Dogtopia.
And a former McDonald’s in Aurora, Illinois was converted into Hounds Town Aurora, a facility that offers overnight pet boarding, full-service grooming and a pet taxi service.
The reuse of former restaurants as pet boarding facilities may not be all that surprising given recent — and projected — growth in the pet boarding market.
The North American pet boarding market size was an estimated $8.6 billion in 2023 according to Grand View Research and is projected to grow at a compound annual rate of 8.6% over the next five years.
So additional real estate will be required as the number of pet boarding establishments increases.
But not every proposed restaurant-to-pet resort adaptive reuse will be possible.
And it won’t necessarily be due to the real estate.
For instance, a Red Dog Pet Resort and Spa was proposed as an adaptive reuse of a former Applebee’s restaurant in the Cincinnati area.
However, the site’s zoning did not permit overnight animal boarding.
The project’s development group petitioned to rezone the site as a Planned Unit Development that allowed for a pet boarding use at the site.
But it failed to pass the Blue Ash, Ohio City Council with a supermajority vote.
The group’s subsequent attempt to obtain a “Zoning Text Amendment” that would allow animal boarding and kennels as a permitted use also failed.
As for the former Applebee’s restaurant?
It remains vacant.
