designcritic

No pictures but I did notice this morning that they have started work on the tunnel which will eventually connect to the Children's Hospital.

You are correct. There won't be any construction above grade for over a year. The deck contains about 2300 spaces so you can imagine it is going to take some time to build. Over the course of the project there will be four different tower cranes on the site. It sure would be nice if they could all be going up at the same time but that can't happen due to the phasing issues.

Picture the site as three pieces: east, center and west. The east and west sections are currently under construction and the center will begin as soon as the first new tower is complete. Construction work is currently being done on the temporary support to retain the earth so the deck can be built. Once this work is complete a tunnel about 50' below Michigan Street will be built connecting the LHCP to the Future Children's Hospital. Then the parking structure work can begin. Once the deck is complete the towers will be built on top of it. This first tower will be occupied by the current Towers Medical Building tenants as well as some new ones and it will sit on the east half of the west section. There will eventually be two towers on the west section, one on the center section and the Lemmen Holton Cancer Pavilion on the East section. There will also be a bridge connecting to the Children's Hospital and one connecting to the Van Andel Institute. This is a huge multi year project with many phases so don't expect it to be done in two years.

There is ground floor food/retail in the project but it will not front the sidewalk. Do to the sloping site there will be a plaza level where vehicles enter from Michigan Street. The retail will be at that level. If you go to the GR Development Briefs Topic you can see the plan for the plaza level.

Yes it will

The towers will be staying put until the first new tower is built. Then the current occupants will move into the new tower thus allowing the old building to be torn down making way for the rest of the development.

The Cancer Center will start first but they will both be under construction at the same time.

It will not be boring. The area north of Michigan from Coit to Division will be parking deck but it steps down as the hill does so it has less of a presence. I have seen the design and once complete it will be very nice. It is certainly a challenge do to the severe grade change however.