Source: The Grand Rapids Press
http://www.mlive.com/news/grpress/index.ssf?/base/news-13/1077897492160620.xml
On February 27, 2004 The Grand Rapids Press reported that "Muslim leaders today were to buy three acres on the west side of East Paris Avenue, south of 32nd Street SE in Kentwood. They are raising money for a $750,000 mosque that would be the first of its kind in the region... The site sits outside Grand Rapids, about one mile south of another domed place of worship -- St. Nicholas Antiochian Orthodox Church. The Middle Eastern architecture will be a change of scenery for residents of suburban Kentwood. But Muslim leaders say the location is perfect, especially with the arrival of more and more Bosnian refugees in Southeast Grand Rapids. The settlement of some 12,000 Bosnians has made Islam the area's largest non-Christian faith, which Metwalli estimates as high as 14,000 adherents. A national study in 2000 estimated 7,000 area Muslims, still much higher than the area's roughly 2,000 Jews."