I'm pretty excited about this project, as it ticks a lot of boxes for me. Shutting down an old coal-fired plant on the downtown waterfront, upgrading an old coal-fired plant to natural gas, and moving some industrial operations off of the downtown waterfront to revitalize some blighted industrial space elsewhere in the city. As much as I get frustrated with BWL from time-to-time, this seems like a great project overall.
I can only hope they'll put the Penn/Hazel parcel to good use. It is ideally located, IMHO for a large multi-use park along the river trail. Does anyone have any good ideas on who to contact at city hall about this, or how to get something like this started???
Despite the "sunken garden" deal, I am proud of our power company and their plan to end coal burning. I wonder what will replace their facilities at the Eckert site and over at Penn. and Hazel maybe parkland? I always hated smelling creosote at the pole yard passing by on the river trail, it will be nice to have that gone.
Anything that is permitted by right or special use is allowed in the floodplain, but it is heavily regulated. Basically, you can't build anything that obstructs a flood without also engineering to the site to minimize the impact of the obstruction. The flow of a river at normal level or flooded can not be reduced on net. More than that, you need a permit from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and the city.
Anyway, it's been the policy of the city to try and restore the floodplain, so most likely these lands would be turned back into something really low-impact, probably open-space. In fact, since part of this area borders the River Trail, it'd make a lot of sense to turn the land west of Penn into a park.
For whatever reason, a month or two ago the interactive zoning map stop displaying the floodplain overlay. However, this future land use map by the city does show the outline of the floodplain:
As you can see, nearly the entire area of the Penn-Hazel complex is in the floodplain save for the office building at the end of Haco Drive. It also appears about half the Eckert Station site is in the floodplain. Both sites are planned to stay industrial, it appears.
I can't imagine the city would allow them to remain standing once the BWL moves. Not only is the BWL an entity with the money to cover demolition, but they are also a pretty good neighbor, or at least have gotten better at being a good neighbor.
This is good news, I'm especially interested in the reuse of the Hazel property. At least one of the buildings facing Hazel would be worth saving, if a company is interested in the rest of the complex and is willing to put money into it I'd say let them. I like the idea of some of the site becoming a park but I would like to see an opportunity for development along the streets. That section of Pennsylvania is lifeless, I think it could use some good quality commercial space and Hazel has the potential to become more of an urban/mixed use corridor. I think it's fairly safe to say that whatever happens BWL won't let the property fall into disrepair.
There was the usual ominous note in the announcement for the West Side Project, it mentions "tree trimming" as one of the first things they are going to do. I was wondering where are these trees?
Comments
Press release says 255 MW:
http://www.lbwl.com/About-the-BWL/News/BWL-Announces-$500-Million-Natural-Gas-Power-Plant/
The overall plan, of course, includes increased investment in renewables and efficiency gains.
I'm pretty excited about this project, as it ticks a lot of boxes for me. Shutting down an old coal-fired plant on the downtown waterfront, upgrading an old coal-fired plant to natural gas, and moving some industrial operations off of the downtown waterfront to revitalize some blighted industrial space elsewhere in the city. As much as I get frustrated with BWL from time-to-time, this seems like a great project overall.
I can only hope they'll put the Penn/Hazel parcel to good use. It is ideally located, IMHO for a large multi-use park along the river trail. Does anyone have any good ideas on who to contact at city hall about this, or how to get something like this started???
Despite the "sunken garden" deal, I am proud of our power company and their plan to end coal burning. I wonder what will replace their facilities at the Eckert site and over at Penn. and Hazel maybe parkland? I always hated smelling creosote at the pole yard passing by on the river trail, it will be nice to have that gone.
gbd - do you know what is actually allowed on floodplains in Lansing, in terms of zoning?
Anything that is permitted by right or special use is allowed in the floodplain, but it is heavily regulated. Basically, you can't build anything that obstructs a flood without also engineering to the site to minimize the impact of the obstruction. The flow of a river at normal level or flooded can not be reduced on net. More than that, you need a permit from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and the city.
Anyway, it's been the policy of the city to try and restore the floodplain, so most likely these lands would be turned back into something really low-impact, probably open-space. In fact, since part of this area borders the River Trail, it'd make a lot of sense to turn the land west of Penn into a park.
For whatever reason, a month or two ago the interactive zoning map stop displaying the floodplain overlay. However, this future land use map by the city does show the outline of the floodplain:
http://lansingmi.gov/DocumentCenter/Home/View/375
As you can see, nearly the entire area of the Penn-Hazel complex is in the floodplain save for the office building at the end of Haco Drive. It also appears about half the Eckert Station site is in the floodplain. Both sites are planned to stay industrial, it appears.
Thanks MM!
I wonder if the plan is to demolish the BWL buildings in the Hazel Street area? Empty warehouse type buildings are not what the neighborhood needs.
I can't imagine the city would allow them to remain standing once the BWL moves. Not only is the BWL an entity with the money to cover demolition, but they are also a pretty good neighbor, or at least have gotten better at being a good neighbor.
This is good news, I'm especially interested in the reuse of the Hazel property. At least one of the buildings facing Hazel would be worth saving, if a company is interested in the rest of the complex and is willing to put money into it I'd say let them. I like the idea of some of the site becoming a park but I would like to see an opportunity for development along the streets. That section of Pennsylvania is lifeless, I think it could use some good quality commercial space and Hazel has the potential to become more of an urban/mixed use corridor. I think it's fairly safe to say that whatever happens BWL won't let the property fall into disrepair.
There was the usual ominous note in the announcement for the West Side Project, it mentions "tree trimming" as one of the first things they are going to do. I was wondering where are these trees?