Knapp's building redevelopment

hood

Eyde plans on redeveloping the former Knapp's department store in Lansing. The renovated building will contain retail and office space, along with a business incubator 19 residential units and underground parking. Eyde plans to move their own headquarters, with about 50 employees, from their Hagadorn Rd location to the Knapp's. The project is expected to cost $22 to $24 million, begin in early 2011 and be complete in 2013.

Eyde plans overhall of Knapp's building

LSJ Archive of Knapp's building

Lansing City Pulse article on the announcement:
Knapp's wakes up

hood

I don't see $24 million as an unrealistic number for this renovation. As you said the building was fairly recently occupied as an office building and has been maintained. You could almost build a brand new building Knapp's size for $24 million.

By the way here are renderings and floor plans:
Exterior View


View of atrium


View of residential patio


Basement parking floor plan


First floor plan


Office floor plans (2nd-4th floors)


Residential floor plan (5th floor)

hood

I had heard of that parking garage before from my parents. Apparently it was sort of a shoddy building and wasn't around for all that long. Besides that all I know is that it was 8 floors, the discolored line on the side of the Masonic Temple was the roof line of the ramp.

micro

I wonder what effect this will have on the adjacent buildings to the west on Washtenaw. Will they be razed, left in their current state, etc.?

jwswrites

Cooley owns those buildings, which leads me to think their days probably are numbered. But who knows?

The law school bought them from Accident Fund, which had been amassing land around downtown before it decided to move its HQ into the power plant.

hood

I did not know that Cooley scooped up those buildings, thats kinda disappointing really. I think they have plenty of room for expansion between their library location and the lot next to the Temple Building, it's probably a sign that they intend to expand outwards as opposed to upwards.

hood

I think that building is just office. It was supposed to be renovated into lofts, but I remember hearing that they decided just to make it into offices. It was discussed on one of the forums awhile back, it was called 301 Place. I can find mentions of it, but very little info on it. Looks like it was a 2005 project.

hood

Another article on the project from todays LSJ, it's basically just a feel-good article: Newest downtown project spurs excitement, optimism

I am glad to here though that class-A office space only has a 6.1% vacancy rate downtown, I think that's pretty good.

jwswrites

Blue Cross/Accident Fund owns the lot next to the Temple building, at the corner of Capitol and Washtenaw - not Cooley. Cooley's only undeveloped parcels, according to city property records, look to be those empty two-story buildings next to Knapp's, and the surface lot on Washington next to the library (all on the same block).

The renovation that was to be 301 Place never happened. That building was mostly empty and continued to sit vacant. Then Accident Fund bought it and didn't renew the lease for Linn & Owen Jewelers because it was once envisioned as a possible expansion site for AF.

flowergirl

In the larger retail area available on the first floor I would like to see a small supermarket. L&L's would be perfect. This would be a great place for people living in the building as well as the condos on Kalamazoo and the stadium district to walk to for groceries. The overlooked market in this scenerio is the thousands of downtown workers who would be able to quickly pick up milk & bread before their commute home. Think like a mother: I could walk to the downtown L&L (which counts as 10 mins. excersize) and drive home non-stop OR I could drive 20 mins. to Meijer and find a parking space and buy 10 more things than I wanted and then continue home.

I live 7 blocks away from the Knapps building and it would also be the perfect place for me to do much of my grocery shopping. I have enough clothes, food I need to constantly replace.

jwswrites

Realistically, I doubt we have enough housing units immediately downtown to woo in a grocery store. There's a pretty good analysis of what could come next - and how soon we could expect retail growth downtown - in today's City Pulse. The new city market, however, could help fill some of the food needs that now exist. You can buy milk and bread there, and they've expanded their hours to 7 p.m.