I'm guessing the area at the corner that says "NIC" is where the hotel will go. It seems like a fairly small footprint so I'd imagine it will either be a small hotel or, more likely, a relatively tall building for the area.
Someone over at SSP asked about office vacancy rates which prompted me to go look up the most recent ones from CBRE. Downtown Lansing has an almost crazy low 3.2% class A vacancy rate, though I don't think that included Knapps as the report is from the second half of 2013. Download the reports CBRE Market Reports
After thinking about it for a long time, I finally started working on a SketchUp model of my imagined redevelopment of the buildings at Mt Hope and Washington about two months ago. As of now I'm about half done with the exteriors, but I'm pretty happy with my progress up to this point so I decided to share. I don't know who all still lurks here, as I'd truly appreciate anybody's opinions or ideas, but I'd really love to hear from anyone who has any background in architecture or urban planning.
I've always wondered about that piece of land too. I'd bet that someone bought it and either their planned development fell through or they anticipated development in the area to pick more than it did. All of Aurelius feels rather separated from Lansing, and most of it feels at least somewhat rural. The Jolly in Dunkel area also feels weird to be in the City, but instead of rural it feels completely suburban.
I lived on Sunnyside for a while in the 70's when Scott Woods was a very isolated park behind Lansing General. Then as now you can access the park from a small parking lot at the end of Clifton Street. Of course the woods were there but Hawk Island was a gravel pit and I think that the smaller lake was also a gravel pit. The area is atop a glacial deposit that runs through Lansing kind of north and south all the way over to Groesbeck. Along these ridges they would dig for gravel and stone that created the little lakes in the area where they dug down far enough to hit underground springs. I think the area you point out was a gravel pit but I do not remember anything ever being on that area, there was not much reason to go up Aurelius road in those days, so I could be wrong!
I have returned to Lansing after living on the East Coast for 35 years. I grew up here went to Barnes Ave, Dwight Rich ,Sexton, LCC, and MSU
I was born at Sparrow, were my Mother went to the nursing school, my Dad owned a Sunoco Station at Logan and Main Street and worked at REO my Grand Father worked at Olds my brother was on the 1963 Sexton Big Reds football team that won State. So I guess that make's me a Lansing guy and I have been interested in Lansing Development since I was a boy growing up here. I witnessed the "urban renewal" destruction in the 60's of half of the 19th and early 20th century Lansing and have almost always been kind of disappointed by what replaced it. I mean it has kind of worked out as planned, but there are still surface parking lots on N. Washington where theaters and stores were, and the buildings although nice enough look like they were picked out from different suburban office parks. I wish we could aim higher make real places that are reason in them selves to visit. That being said I was wondering about a few things that happen in the time I have been away. When did they rebuild Quentin Park, what did they do with the boulders that made up the rock gardens that lined the hill? When did they put in those speed bumps in some neighborhoods? Did the residents want them? I use to be so nice to take a drive down Moores River Drive now it's a pain. I think stop signs and traffic circles like on Barnes work better and not so jarring. I'll have more comments and ideas, it is great to have have found a place to discuss Lansing I love being home!
I live about a half mile away from that lot on Aurelius. I've been here since 2003 and I've never seen any signs on that property. But like you said it's always maintained. The deer from Hawk Island, Scott Woods, and all the other little parks around this area congregate in this and other open areas along Aurelius. It really does feel like living in the country sometimes. I grew up in the middle of nowhere west of Charlotte and it's a very similar feeling. The lack of sidewalks along this stretch of Aurelius is one of my pet peeves. I'd like to see Aurelius resurfaced so that the bike lanes are not so rough and so that you can drive down it without feeling like you're going over railroad tracks. The road surface went downhill when Aurelius was used as the detour for the Pennsylvania bridge replacement.
Regarding the traffic calming measures, I can't stand speed bumps and the chicane style obstacles, like the one on Mary Ave, are even worse. I'd agree that stop signs and traffic circles are far better and probably safer. I think the City had a traffic engineer awhile back who was responsible for all these traffic calming measures, I vaguely remember him fielding questions at a council meeting defending them. They seemed to all be installed over a fairly short period of time, around the late 90's and early 2000's I think.
Thank you for answering my questions about the speed bumps, I understand why they are there I just think they could us better more attractive ways to slow traffic. The bumps are ugly all scraped from bottom outs some of then are really huge like on Lindbergh Drive, I don't know what would be worse cars going too fast or the clunk clunk sound of cars going over that bump. I don't suppose that they will ever remove or rebuild them. Since I have been home I was wondering at what point they stopped repairing the streets. All of Mt Hope is pretty bad some place all four lanes are potholes. Get the people who rebuilt S Washington and the Boulevard part of MLK to just rebuild the streets.I Lived in small town in New England were they rebuilt the roads with permeable pavement that lets water flow through into the ground, it worked really well and in the winter no potholes because there was no water to freeze and thaw. I see where the construction on Mt Hope is moving along but they are only replacing the sidewalks not repaving the street. As for bike lanes we have nice smooth ones on S. Washington to Barnes Ave anyway, but most people still ride on the side walk, which seems to mean they like being separated from the traffic, as most bike lanes are on streets that were once four lanes now three so there is a good amount of space to put down a curb with cuts for drives. I think a street like Kalamazoo could have a scooter/bike lane down the center lane with left turns like on E Michigan. You can still see some of the boulders on the east side of Quentin Park there were rock gardens and walls the stones seemed to be specimen from out of state there were many of different colors shapes and sizes there was a wild ramble we called the gully that lead up the the park house which was used as a warming house for winter skating and sledding.There was a kind of stage area at the foot of the hill with huge cedar trees as the back drop. In the summer there were "counselors" there who would direct all kinds of activities. At some point they took down the park house filled in the gully cut down a lot of trees and took out the rock gardens. It looks nice enough now but I rarely see anyone there.
Agreed. Just simple maintenance like sweeping the bike lanes would help immensely. I did the Hawk-I Triathlon in May and the stretch of Mt Hope from Aurelius to 496 was the worst section of the bike ride, although Beaumont and Forest were pretty bad also. I'd like to see more bike-friendly designs in the area. Hopefully trails to more areas of the county can be built with the money from the Ingham County parks millage.
Comments
My SketchUp Model (Dropbox link): Mt Hope and Washington
Download SketchUp here: Sketchup Make
I was born at Sparrow, were my Mother went to the nursing school, my Dad owned a Sunoco Station at Logan and Main Street and worked at REO my Grand Father worked at Olds my brother was on the 1963 Sexton Big Reds football team that won State. So I guess that make's me a Lansing guy and I have been interested in Lansing Development since I was a boy growing up here. I witnessed the "urban renewal" destruction in the 60's of half of the 19th and early 20th century Lansing and have almost always been kind of disappointed by what replaced it. I mean it has kind of worked out as planned, but there are still surface parking lots on N. Washington where theaters and stores were, and the buildings although nice enough look like they were picked out from different suburban office parks. I wish we could aim higher make real places that are reason in them selves to visit. That being said I was wondering about a few things that happen in the time I have been away. When did they rebuild Quentin Park, what did they do with the boulders that made up the rock gardens that lined the hill? When did they put in those speed bumps in some neighborhoods? Did the residents want them? I use to be so nice to take a drive down Moores River Drive now it's a pain. I think stop signs and traffic circles like on Barnes work better and not so jarring. I'll have more comments and ideas, it is great to have have found a place to discuss Lansing I love being home!