Again, to be clear, the only thing imminently planned, at the moment, is one level of parking above some speculative retail/commercial space. The township is seeking practically ALL of Ingham County's alloted stimulus bonds to build this. The rest of the plan is completely speculative, which the township supervisor even alludes to in the article that ran in the Journal, today.
Again, this story was released purely to try and out-wrangle Accident Fund for the available stimulus bonds. The county has a total of $29 million to dole out. The township is seeking $21 to $25 million of those for Eastwood's parking garage, and Accident Fund is seeking $16.2 million for its project for its parking garage. They decided to release the speculative plans, today, to make a stronger case for their bid, but I don't buy it.
What should happen is that Accident Fund is granted the $16.2 million it needs to help it with its parking garage, and the rest could go to Lansing Township, and force them to come up with the rest of the money they need for their speculative project. This is yet another example of a township wanting to be treated on equal funding as an incorporated city. They want to have their cake and eat it to. They know that as a township they can only raise a fraction in taxes what a city can. Well, boo-effin-hoo. Incorporate, then, and maybe you'll have the more of your own money to put towards these boondoggles.
Everyone seems to be stuck on debating the possible planning merits of the plan when the real issue, here, and other meta issues, which isn't a bad thing, but this is really another example of a township wanting to have the best of both worlds: wanting city-level amenities without incorporating.
The Eyde's are rich, right? If Lansing Township and corporation really believes in the merits of this project, they'll do what Lansing did with Accident Fund's request for a garage: ask them to front half the money for the parking ramp and bond the rest of it out.
You can't exactly say Accident Fund and Christman aren't well off. Both are successful companies, and AF certainly has significant pools of money behind it being an insurance company. I don't mean to be rude but - if you follow the argument MichMatters just put forward - if the township should be expected to finance its own parking garage, then Christman/AF should too.
Of course, that's just not realistic. Rarely do developers of any kind simply break out cash to do a project. They need investors and lenders to provide credit. I think the conversation on this site shows there's a pretty good business case for both of these projects to move forward. But they need the friggin' banks to come out of their shells and do actually do business. Since the banks are unwilling or unable to finance these good projects, now we have to look to the government for help.
Micro is right. We need good suburbs and we need a strong, vibrant downtown. They're not mutually exclusive.
All that said, to me, clearly the Accident Fund project is the more significant and rises to the top for funding. If Lansing Township had a list of signed businesses ready to move in and create lots of jobs, I might think differently. AF has pledged to create hundreds of new jobs, and this project is giving Lansing the much-needed boost to remake the riverfront. I hope the township gets funding for its project too (because, as a number of folks here noted, it's a good plan), but in the grand scheme of things, the AF/Christman garage has to have priority.
You obviously misread me and completely missed my point. I never even implied that Accident Fund isn't a wealthy company. In fact, that's exactly what I argued: that they are putting their money where their mouth is by not only undertaking the multi-million dollar reconstruction of the Ottawa Street Station and construction of an expensive new annex, but also willing to put up half the cost of building a parking garage. Given that fact then, if the township truly believes the project to be worthwhile -- and they don't have the funds for a parking garage -- they'd be begging the Eyde's to front some of the cost.
Even if you disagree with that, what we both agree on is the most important point in all of this: Accident Fund's garage should have priority, period, for the sole fact that it's supporting a project already underway. I guess that does tie back into my gripe, though: If Lansing Township believes in their speculative project (especially aruging that it should somehow get priority over a spectacular project already underway), let them and the Eyde's find a way for it; we don't need to be, nor should we be, subsidizing it. It may be different if they had some large anchor tenants committed, but I'd still give priority to the city center when it comes down to a contest between the two.
Like I said before, if there was some way to know for sure that they'd build a MULTI-level parking garage and two 12-15 story towers and had an anchor tenent or two, I would be very much more in support of this project. So in that sense I agree with jwswrites. But currently all that is actually proposed is a one-level parking ramp and that's hard for me to get behind funding as a taxpayer on that alone. Add to that the fact that is in direct competition to the AF multi-level ramp that's part of the most significant project in the entire region in my opinion and I really can't support a one-level ramp by itself. So in that sense I also agree with MM. I do think suburbs are important for longterm MAJOR growth (as much as I don't like them), but if I have to choose between two projects, I always go with city center. My reason is simple, there are a million cookie cutter nice suburbs, but there are far fewer urban city centers out there to live in. So the city center (along with E. Lansing's college town vibe) is what makes mid-michigan stand-out from all those suburb options and therefore that's where we should be focusing our projects. However, as I said, to truly compete for all major businesses to have a larger pool of potential companies, some of which just aren't going to want to completely leave the suburb lifestyle, we do need good suburbs.
I think its good that they were able to have money for this project and the Accident Fund ramp. Eastwood is certainly developing into a very nice area and it will offer an impressive gateway into Lansing for those coming from the north.
Has this project been built? I always support projects in city centers over suburban greenfield projects. Sprawl hurts us all! If the population of the area was growing quickly, there would have to be some outward expansion, but even in that situation it should be high density.
No it has not been built yet, construction hasn't started yet either. From what I understand the smaller version of the project including about 150,000 sq ft of retail and a parking ramp is basically a sure thing and is supposed to start construction this year.
Comments
Again, this story was released purely to try and out-wrangle Accident Fund for the available stimulus bonds. The county has a total of $29 million to dole out. The township is seeking $21 to $25 million of those for Eastwood's parking garage, and Accident Fund is seeking $16.2 million for its project for its parking garage. They decided to release the speculative plans, today, to make a stronger case for their bid, but I don't buy it.
What should happen is that Accident Fund is granted the $16.2 million it needs to help it with its parking garage, and the rest could go to Lansing Township, and force them to come up with the rest of the money they need for their speculative project. This is yet another example of a township wanting to be treated on equal funding as an incorporated city. They want to have their cake and eat it to. They know that as a township they can only raise a fraction in taxes what a city can. Well, boo-effin-hoo. Incorporate, then, and maybe you'll have the more of your own money to put towards these boondoggles.
Everyone seems to be stuck on debating the possible planning merits of the plan when the real issue, here, and other meta issues, which isn't a bad thing, but this is really another example of a township wanting to have the best of both worlds: wanting city-level amenities without incorporating.
The Eyde's are rich, right? If Lansing Township and corporation really believes in the merits of this project, they'll do what Lansing did with Accident Fund's request for a garage: ask them to front half the money for the parking ramp and bond the rest of it out.
Of course, that's just not realistic. Rarely do developers of any kind simply break out cash to do a project. They need investors and lenders to provide credit. I think the conversation on this site shows there's a pretty good business case for both of these projects to move forward. But they need the friggin' banks to come out of their shells and do actually do business. Since the banks are unwilling or unable to finance these good projects, now we have to look to the government for help.
Micro is right. We need good suburbs and we need a strong, vibrant downtown. They're not mutually exclusive.
All that said, to me, clearly the Accident Fund project is the more significant and rises to the top for funding. If Lansing Township had a list of signed businesses ready to move in and create lots of jobs, I might think differently. AF has pledged to create hundreds of new jobs, and this project is giving Lansing the much-needed boost to remake the riverfront. I hope the township gets funding for its project too (because, as a number of folks here noted, it's a good plan), but in the grand scheme of things, the AF/Christman garage has to have priority.
You obviously misread me and completely missed my point. I never even implied that Accident Fund isn't a wealthy company. In fact, that's exactly what I argued: that they are putting their money where their mouth is by not only undertaking the multi-million dollar reconstruction of the Ottawa Street Station and construction of an expensive new annex, but also willing to put up half the cost of building a parking garage. Given that fact then, if the township truly believes the project to be worthwhile -- and they don't have the funds for a parking garage -- they'd be begging the Eyde's to front some of the cost.
Even if you disagree with that, what we both agree on is the most important point in all of this: Accident Fund's garage should have priority, period, for the sole fact that it's supporting a project already underway. I guess that does tie back into my gripe, though: If Lansing Township believes in their speculative project (especially aruging that it should somehow get priority over a spectacular project already underway), let them and the Eyde's find a way for it; we don't need to be, nor should we be, subsidizing it. It may be different if they had some large anchor tenants committed, but I'd still give priority to the city center when it comes down to a contest between the two.
I think its good that they were able to have money for this project and the Accident Fund ramp. Eastwood is certainly developing into a very nice area and it will offer an impressive gateway into Lansing for those coming from the north.
This is detailing Lansing Townships renewed plans for those development bonds freed up by Accident Fund.