Central Lansing Construction and Development.

[hood]

Here is a rendering of the new LCC University Center, it will only be 22,000 sq ft and 2 floors, plus the Carnegie Libtary for a total of 37,000 sq ft. It does look nice though. LCC plans to eventually build a paring ramp on the remainder of the land, in the meantime it will be a park. Construction is set to begin in July, I was down by LCC today and seen they were putting a fence up around Old Central, apparently they have been clearing the inside of the building out since May 12th.

[RustTown]

Cool! I like the plaza look. It will open up the corner better. I'd eventually like to see a total reconstruction of LCC as most of it was built during the 60's, which wasn't the best time for architecture. lol Now, if only developers can start bringing up the corners across the street...

[MJLO]

Is the BWL, a lansing city service? Or is it a state service? Not sure how it works over there.

[hood]

Cool! I like the plaza look. It will open up the corner better. I'd eventually like to see a total reconstruction of LCC as most of it was built during the 60's, which wasn't the best time for architecture. lol Now, if only developers can start bringing up the corners across the street...

All it would really take is a reskinning of those buildings, I really like the architecture that LCC has decided on, it appears similar to the TLC. I got the pic from the LCC newspaper, I emailed them today to try to get a larger version of it, I hope they have one because I would really like to get a better idea of how it will look. When it comes to the other corners, I see that whole stretch of Shiawassee changing dramatically, LCC is going to be selling off their little building on the South side of the street, the Oliver Towers will have something nice developed on it almost garunteed, the North Capitol ramp is nearing the end of it's life, the property at Grand & Shiawassee will likely go high-rise and the rest is parking lot. Shiawassee is in the making to be a nice street through there.

Is the BWL, a lansing city service? Or is it a state service? Not sure how it works over there.

It is owned by the City of Lansing, they supply water, sewer and electric to the city (plus water to most of the region) they also supply steam and chiller for downtown.

[RustTown]

Consumers Energy supplies electric, too. I'm not sure how many customers they have here in Lansing, though.

[hood]

Consumers Energy supplies electric, too. I'm not sure how many customers they have here in Lansing, though.

I think they have very, very few within city limits, but I know they do supply some of the suburbs, we have them down here in Holt and they suck so far.

[RustTown]

Well, we have Consumers in this area, but I was unsure how many others in Lansing use them.

[LanCity]

The least of my concern is whether or not those cyclotron scientists get it. The building seems to be in a bad loacation for them anyway, in a low-profile location on the opposite side of town from where they should be looking. If they really need a place Cedar St school is still available as far as I know, they had no great need for Verlinden.

On all accounts you're way wrong. The location was an ideal site for them because it fit exactly what they needed for their operations and gave them adequate room to grow, plus the price was right. The school district took an extra $250k to forsake potentially 100+ high tech jobs and an extremely high tech business. Also, you have no idea what you're talking about Cedar St. School in no way shape or form matches up with their needs like verlinden did... lets just hope they don't get p.o.'d and leave lansing all together

[hood]

THe LSD needs all the money it can get, it couldn't turn down that much extra money. I was just thinking of another great location for them, the former YMCA building on Lenewee in Downtown, it is somewhat large (maybe around 50k sq ft), probably cheap, has a gym and has easy access to EL being so close to 496.

[RustTown]

On all accounts you're way wrong. The location was an ideal site for them because it fit exactly what they needed for their operations and gave them adequate room to grow, plus the price was right. The school district took an extra $250k to forsake potentially 100+ high tech jobs and an extremely high tech business. Also, you have no idea what you're talking about Cedar St. School in no way shape or form matches up with their needs like verlinden did... lets just hope they don't get p.o.'d and leave lansing all together

I completely agree with you, 100%. I wrote Niowave and email asking them to seriously consider Lansing as the site of their new home, again, as judging by articles done on them in the paper today and yesterday, they are really miffed that they didn't gete the site. LSD was thinking short term and not long term. The potential tax base that Niowave can create, as well as all of the jobs in could create are much more than the quick $750,000.

Hopefully, the mayor knows about this issue. I'm going to email him, anyway, to keep Niowave looking at Lansing. Like NeoGen and BioPort, Niowave is JUST the kind of company we need in this city, and there are plenty of other sites available for them.

If anyone is interested in writing Niowave, their email address is:

[email protected]

[hood]

Thanks, I am interested in writing Niowave about the YMCA site. I was looking for an email earlier today, but couldn't find one.

Also, I was by Old Central again today and they have begun exterior demolition, you can see some of the exterior of the origional building on the North side of the site.

[RustTown]

BTW, the Michigan Restaurant Association building, and the old SOS (Secretary of State) office building, downtown, have been completely leveled at the southeast corner of Washtenaw and Townsend.

Hood, I remember you saying that their new building will only be one story on that huge parcel. Is that right?

[hood]

I was hearing two floors, about 30-40k sq ft, but I can't remember exactly. I was really hoping for at least three floors, but who knows. I was by there the other day and was sort of suprised to see them tearing it down, I had completely forgotten about that project. If it does end up only being two floors I hope they at least have some decent architecture, such as what LCC is doing with the University Center.

[RustTown]

I'd really like to see, too, the city sell off their municipal surface lot behind the South Capitol Parking Structure on that block. It looks like the perfect place for housing primarily for Cooley Students, as it's right behind the Cooley Center, and that's a lot of people to pull from.

[hood]

I have a feeling that when the City tears down the South Capitol ramp, which can't be much more than 5 years off, that they will either include this parcel in whatever they do on the site or they will sell it off at that time.

[RustTown]

News blurb:

BoarsHead's building put up for sale

By Mike Hughes

Lansing State Journal

Published June 9, 2006

BoarsHead Theater

[hood]

Couple interesting things in the City Council agenda for this week:

"Planning Board recommendations re: SLU-3-2006; Vacant Lot, N. Larch St., Petition for Special Land Use filed by Fady Inc. to allow for construction of a 4-Unit townhouse building"

Fady Inc owns a vacant lot on the East side of Larch, 3 lots north of Oakland, I assume this is where this will go. As far as I'm concerned anything that fills in vacant lots is a good thing.

All regarding the Hollister Building:

"Applications for an Obsolete Property Rehabilitation Act (OPRA) District filed by Hollister Holdings LLC for property located at 106 W. Allegan

Application for a Neighborhood Enterprise Zone (NEZ) filed by Hollister Holdings LLC for property located at 106 W. Allegan

Brownfield Redevelopment Plan #26; Hollister Building Redevelopment Project located at 106 W. Allegan St."

I'll be really happy to see this move forward.

And this:

"Notice of Intent to Establish a Condominium Project, "Wimsatt Industrial Park," filed by Hoffman-Lansing, L.L.C for property located on Miller Rd."

I assume this is the long vacant parcel at Miller & Waverly or the one closer to Pleasant Grove, either way, I'm happy to see some more vacant land getting filled in, even if it is only industrial.

[RustTown]

Yeah, the land on the eastside of Larch in between Oakland and Grand River needs some infill. In fact, there are some strange buildings that were recently built (last year I believe). They have garage doors, but I can't figure out what it is.

[hood]

I seen one of them, on the east side of Larch just south of Grand River, that one was actually built by Fady Inc, the same people doing this.

[RustTown]

Yeah, but what is it? I can't imagine those are homes, and I sure hope that's not what they are putting end on the rest of the empty lots.

[hood]

I don't have clue what it is. It looks like a two unit garage, the only think I can think is that it is leased out as garage/storage space. Heres a pic from the assessors site:

[RustTown]

Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.

I think you're right. It may simply be storage facilities, but an extremely strange place to put them. It really detracts from the already rundown neighborhood.

My vision is that for nearly everything between Cedar and Larch, and Oakland and Grand River to eventually be phased out to make way for townhomes/rowhomes and the like. The current layout of Cedar, Larch, and Oakland as one-way streets just screams for something more dense than those single-family homes.

[hood]

The thing stopping anything nice from being built there is that Cedar, Larch and Oakland are main throughfares, not many people want to spend a lot of money to live on main throughfares. And the reasoning behind those streets being one way is much different than the reasoning behind one way streets downtown. Larch, Cedar and Oakland are one way because they need to support lots of traffic, and turning two 3 lane roads into one ways is cheaper than widening one to 6 or more lanes, another reason is traffic flow is much better and safer on one ways. Downtown streets are one ways because there is simply no room to widen roads, so one ways are the only option.

[RustTown]

Yeah, but the again, because Cedar, Larch, and Oakland are one way, it makes much less since to have single family homes fronting them. This set up now calls for more dense housing where one doesn't have to worry about a front yard. I'd imagine that access for the townhomes in my vision would be off an alley that cuts north/south through the block.

I wasn't making a judgement one way or the other about the streets being one way, but rather making the observation that the single-family homes fronting the streets no longer make much since. The houses were built when the streets were two way, and when they weren't major thoroughfare.

[hood]

While I definately think that single family homes are wrond for these streets, I don't think townhomes would be much better. I think the ideal use would be either entirely commercial space or apartment/condo buildings with ground floor commercial/retail space. Lansing will have to do much better before anything significant happens along these streets.