-University Edge is fully leased (well 789 of 792 beds as of last month).
-Market-rate housing is expected to be complete by March/April 2022, senior housing is expected to be finished by May 2022.
-At least four restaurants are planned, an Italian restaurant in one of the hotels and a restaurant with space for outdoor games we’re specifically mentioned.
-20-acre public park with amphitheater and River Trail access is in development.
I had been hoping to hear about the hotels, and the rest of the plan moving forward. It will interesting to see how the leasing of the retail space goes. I think that being close to campus and Frandor will help filling those spaces, both of the new buildings just west of there still have most of the retail space unleased.
The crews were pouring the cement banks stairs and sidewalks in front of the western apartment buildings Wednesday. I like the color scheme for those buildings, it was looking like they might be beige but they are now a dark charcoal around the top and brick on the lower floors. The senior building looks different than the apartment buildings, with light colored bricks and different windows. I would guess this would be a medical type use for this building and had to be steal frame and brick building for safety? They were also spreading top soil along the Michigan Avenue median rain gardens.
It looks like the Sawyers site next to the University Edge building is being renovate into the long planned pot shop. There was a lot of landscaping being done in the parking lot, they were pulling up some of the blacktop and planting trees! The small building looks like it is being renovated for the shop. I think it is kind of funny how huge some of these pot shops parking lots are, like scores and scores of people would be shopping there. The new one by Frandor has a what must be at least 80 space lot out back. It may not be the best use of space but the one on Michigan Ave is at least greening some of that huge ugly lot.
I really had hoped to see them give up and sell that Sawyer site. Hopefully they still do sooner rather than later and it gets developed in a similar way to the Red Cedar site, it'd be nice to have that gap filled in. It's good to hear they're at least making it look acceptable in the mean time.
I do not know for sure it is going to be a pot shop, but renovating that small dealership building is what several other have done. Like I said it is such waste of a huge space, it must have cost a lot to acquire and renovate. The mark up on MJ must be so huge that they can do it, but you would have to move a lot of product that maybe 4 or 5 other shops are selling within a mile or so to pay the bills for that place. Ever since the new regulations and legal shops started to pop up everywhere I have never been behind more than two people waiting for my turn to shop. Where will the "new" customers come from? Someone has some big bucks, and will be paying more tax revenue to Lansing which is a good thing so I hope they do well.
To be clear, my problem isn't with the use of the building, I'd just prefer to see the site cleared and prepared for development rather than see that little building reused for anything. On the subject of pot shops, I don't think the market is anywhere near saturated, I think the black market still significantly outsizes the legal market, there's a lot of people to still to bring in the fold. As the regulations are eased and/or tweaked the prices will decrease and access will increase and there will be more shops.
I also think it would have been better to clear the site and build something that would have been a better use of that space. I had not thought about the "black market", I left that market the day I moved back to Lansing! The prices have already come down as all the local grow houses have started producing product for all the new shops.
The LSJ.com has an article about a new independent book shop with a cafe and wine bar opening in the development. Sounds like it will be a nice place, they seem to have some good ideas. This is the first retail space in the development that I have heard about being rented. I think this is the type of business they need there, a destination shop for Lansing that will also serve the new community of people living there.
Comments
https://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/news/2021/10/11/red-cedar-development-update/5935363001/
It’s subscribers only, but some highlights…
-University Edge is fully leased (well 789 of 792 beds as of last month).
-Market-rate housing is expected to be complete by March/April 2022, senior housing is expected to be finished by May 2022.
-At least four restaurants are planned, an Italian restaurant in one of the hotels and a restaurant with space for outdoor games we’re specifically mentioned.
-20-acre public park with amphitheater and River Trail access is in development.
-Foundation work for hotels began this month.