Yeah, the one plus side of this project would be the four floor mixed building along Grand River. I won't complain if this gets shot down though. Developers and investors are welcome to look to the west and continue to focus on the corridor between downtown Lansing and East Lansing. From Meridian Townships point of view I can't understand why they much care what happens here. This tract of land is on the edge of their jurisdiction and is only bordered by retail and industrial properties, even the traffic on this section of Grand River is modest compared to just a mile in either direction. I don't see any reason to be against density here, I guess it's just Meridian Township being Meridian Township.
The thing about a project like this, though, if shot down is that the developer isn't likely going to look for more expensive land/development. We'll either lose the units altogether, or they'll build it on some cheaper land off a freeway or in the middle of nowhere. Since this will be on the BRT line, I personally consider developing the corridor between the mall and downtown good up and down the line. Outside of that, you're talking greenfield development. On the line, you're talking about reuse and densification. Yeah, this wouldn't be a huge loss, but eventually enough of these losses start to matter. We see what happened when East Lansing tried to keep development away from its core. We ended up with the Northern Tier and Bath Township. Meridian Township's anti-growth attitude was also a cause of Bath Township sprawl.
Going to sound like a broken record here, but I think Lansing competiting for any-and-every kind of development could mitigate the attitudes to the east. SkyVue seems to be the first volley of this kind of "borrowing" of units that would have no chance in the other two communities unless they were flung off to their fringes as apartment complex sprawl. But even more than that I'd much rather see these two communities along the corridor realize the economic potential of densifying the Grand River corridor. East Lansing is starting to get it and see the benefits, but we're all kind of years behind. Many other areas of the country have been doing TODs (Transit Oriented Developments) for over a decade, now.
It's weird for CATA to be planning a BRT line with one of the major reasons for it being economic development, and then see these communities whine every time a developer wants to develop something more urban on the very same corridor. It's crazy to have NIMBYs on a major commercial thoroughfare. It's not like we're talking about putting up a four-story building in Whitehills.
I agree that I'd prefer this development on Grand River as opposed to almost any other suburban location, my point was simply that it'd be ~200 less apartments for the market to absorb, making any other development in the market more appealing to investors and developers. I actually think that the more dense the Grand River/Michigan corridor becomes, the more momentum it will gain. I'm already surprised at the prospect of multi floor mixed buildings being proposed as far east as Spartan Ave, let alone here, this is a good sign of things to come.
This is being proposed by the same developed that wanted to build student housing where the Whole Foods ended up being built. So it sounds like they found a different site for the same development but now further west. It would have been great to see the Whole Foods on the ground floor of a mixed use building with even more apartments behind it.
I'm not shocked, but I also thought that the trustees might have sent the developers back to the drawing board. I've seen quite a few times in Lansing where the planning board approves something and the council doesn't it, or the planning board rejects a rezoning and the council approves it over them. I think it helped that the developers in this case went back to the drawing board, themselves, and seemed to have allayed whatever concern they and the trustees had.
This week's city pulse had a few rezoning notifications in it for Okemos, though, I'm not sure what the planned development is at either site:
- Someone is requesting 9.07 acres be rezoned at 1510 Grand River (out east past Central Park Drirve) from Professiona and Office to Commercial.
- Someone is requesting 1.18 acres be rezoned at 4660 Marsh Road ( near where Marsh meets Hamilton on the west end of downtown Okemos) from Multi Family-Medium Density to Professional and Office.
I checked Meridian Townships website and they don't have the upcoming packets for the township board or the planning commission, I looked back and there was nothing on those projects within the past month. I'm guessing information on them will be in the next planning commission or township board packet.
Comments
Going to sound like a broken record here, but I think Lansing competiting for any-and-every kind of development could mitigate the attitudes to the east. SkyVue seems to be the first volley of this kind of "borrowing" of units that would have no chance in the other two communities unless they were flung off to their fringes as apartment complex sprawl. But even more than that I'd much rather see these two communities along the corridor realize the economic potential of densifying the Grand River corridor. East Lansing is starting to get it and see the benefits, but we're all kind of years behind. Many other areas of the country have been doing TODs (Transit Oriented Developments) for over a decade, now.
It's weird for CATA to be planning a BRT line with one of the major reasons for it being economic development, and then see these communities whine every time a developer wants to develop something more urban on the very same corridor. It's crazy to have NIMBYs on a major commercial thoroughfare. It's not like we're talking about putting up a four-story building in Whitehills.
- Someone is requesting 9.07 acres be rezoned at 1510 Grand River (out east past Central Park Drirve) from Professiona and Office to Commercial.
- Someone is requesting 1.18 acres be rezoned at 4660 Marsh Road ( near where Marsh meets Hamilton on the west end of downtown Okemos) from Multi Family-Medium Density to Professional and Office.
Maybe someone knows about these.