I was by the site yesterday and there were a couple excavators there and a fair amount of dirt has been moved. I'm guessing that they've started foundation work.
There has been a good bit of earth moving but I have yet to see any structures going up. Across the street the brewery restaurant construction seems to have come to a halt.
The Gillespie Company posted a new rendering of the East Town Flats to their Facebook page 10 days ago.
This shows Strange Matter Coffee as one of the tenants and toned down colors compared to some of the other projects built recently in Lansing by the related Gillespie Group. It's a bit disappointing still to see siding used so widespread in the design as I feel it looks a bit cheap. The same can be said for the cinder block first floor.
At least they are going to give it texture to make it look like stone, though. I can live with this this far from downtown. I could have even lived with Marketplace if it had been out near were Midtown Flats are. The problem happens when they start using prime space inner-city land for crap developments.
It's far from spectacular but I think it looks ok, it'll blend in with the neighborhood better than the previous two designs. I'm not a fan of the concrete block on the first floor or the extensive siding either, but until urban dwellers in this area become a little more discerning we're going to continue to see buildings of this quality go up.
I do wish that developers would focus more on building quality buildings rather than make weak attempts at more unique designs. There's nothing wrong with a basic, sensibly designed brick-clad building, particularly when the alternatives are something like Midtown, Marketplace or this building. If this building were designed in the same school as the one at Marshall & Michigan or any of the Stonehouse Village buildings, it would look at least as good initally and would be less likely to end up looking dated later on. I'd love to see more varied/unique/interesting architecture around here, but when on a budget a simple, tried-and-true design using decent materials is probably a better option.
I think it is an improvement over the first design with the round port windows. It looks like several other new apartment buildings here, perhaps fitting into it's space on East Michigan a bit more. I still as always, wonder what's up with the false roof tops and corrugated metal siding. It looks like something built ten years ago. I know the scale of things is much different, but take a look at some of the projects on the curbed Detroit web site. There they are using more imagination and innovation in the design of the new projects being built. Let's hire some of those guys.
It seems the false rooftops, or "fake heliports" as I think of them, are the cheaper 201X version of cornices. I was looking at buildings in downtown Flint yesterday and some of them have very beautiful cornices at the top of the building, sort of a hat for the building. It looks really nice. Many of the buildings in downtown Detroit lost their cornices due to a city policy of requiring the building owners to put up protective sidewalk coverings or remove them as parts were falling (Righting an architectural wrong in downtown Detroit). It's a shame because the cost to put them back will be much more than it would have to require the landlords to fix them (this could have possibly been done through a historic building designation).
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This shows Strange Matter Coffee as one of the tenants and toned down colors compared to some of the other projects built recently in Lansing by the related Gillespie Group. It's a bit disappointing still to see siding used so widespread in the design as I feel it looks a bit cheap. The same can be said for the cinder block first floor.
I do wish that developers would focus more on building quality buildings rather than make weak attempts at more unique designs. There's nothing wrong with a basic, sensibly designed brick-clad building, particularly when the alternatives are something like Midtown, Marketplace or this building. If this building were designed in the same school as the one at Marshall & Michigan or any of the Stonehouse Village buildings, it would look at least as good initally and would be less likely to end up looking dated later on. I'd love to see more varied/unique/interesting architecture around here, but when on a budget a simple, tried-and-true design using decent materials is probably a better option.
It is turning around in Detroit though, albeit slowly: New lion heads for Detroit's Whitney Building are a sign of times
Just noticed this afternoon that the steel is finally going up.
I saw that they are calling this building "The Venue" on a sign advertising leasing.
Thanks, I updated the title of this thread with the new name.