Mc Kay & Molloys John Ball Park Plat

Most people expect John Ball Park Plat to be all zoo—and while the John Ball Zoo's 2,000-plus animals are genuinely right there, what you actually find is a tightly woven residential block where eight acres of homes sit practically shoulder-to-shoulder with a dozen parks, restaurants within arm's reach, and a transit stop at your doorstep. Median home values hover around $291K, and because the neighborhood sits so close to downtown Grand Rapids (about five minutes by car), you get that urban convenience without feeling buried in it; a grocery store sits less than a mile away, but the real draw is the 90 restaurants within walking distance—Rise Authentic Baking Co. and Bitter End coffee are the kind of places you'll loop back to. The Picnic Area park is a four-minute walk, and if you need breathing room beyond that, Butterworth Park Launch for boats is just under a mile south. Forest Hills Public Schools serves the area, while that pedestrian tunnel under I-196 and the historic gypsum mines beneath the Mines Golf Course give the whole place a sense of story that most subdivisions just don't have.