There's some construction going on visible from the freeway near Davis Hwy, for some reason I had assumed it had to do with the Consumers move but that's not the case, it's a new state lab. This new lab is set to replace the State's facility on N MLK. This will be a two floor 300k sq ft building costing $326 million
I wonder why the State did not decide to build the new facility in downtown Lansing. I have never liked Secondary Complex; I know some things are not a good fit for downtown, but this new facility could have been built downtown imo!
It would have been nice to have a new 300k sq ft building downtown, I think the CDC has high level labs at their downtown Atlanta HQ so I don't think there's any reason why they couldn't have done that. I'm not surprised they put it out at Secondary though, if they were to build a new departmental office building out there I'll be really disappointed.
I'm surprised that they actually spent on architecture for this one. This is a very nice-looking facility, inside and out. Do wish they'd have kept this in Lansing, but it is what it is, I guess. And, yeah, public health and safety isn't really a reason when you've got Niowave and Neogen doing sensitive laboratory work in the middle of Lansing neighborhoods. lol
Agreed on the nice design. To be fair NIowave is just doing particle accelerator work and Neogen only works with food pathogens afaik, this state lab will be working with infectious diseases, a bit of a different beast. That being said they are currently doing this work near neighborhoods in Lansing, as is the anthrax lab. I know there'd be at least a few people making a fuss if they put it downtown though.
Yeah, I know those weren't directly comparable, but comparable in that in that, as you say, they are already doing this work at the MLK facility and have for decades. I wasn't even arguing this needed to be downtown; personally, I'm not sure I'd even want it there. It's just that it didn't need to be way out in Dimondale.
I'm confused, though. Are they moving ALL operations from the MLK facility or just some of them?
As far as I know its all operations from MLK and some scattered stuff from other sites.
On that note... Apparently when they were adding on to the MLK lab recently they already were planning this new facility, the assumption/rumor among state employees was that they had already more or less worked out a deal for Emergent to buy the N MLK lab once it was vacated, so there was some cynicism amongst people involved about the money being put into the building. Long story short: look for Emergent to take over the N MLK lab, at least if they manage to get through their financial situation.
Yeah, a few years back, Emergent was trying to do something up that way, far enough along that they got DeWitt and Lansing to do another 425 Agreement land transfer for some land up that way. But the land reverted back to Lansing after Emergent dragged their feet too long on starting the project. I've got to look up at way to see who owned what these days. I keep mixing up Emergent and the state lab and all that.
I'm not sure if they killed the plan, but all 425 Agreements have a time period in which a project has to be executed, and it's usually a year. So, yeah, that land transfer expired. The 425 Agreement was supposed to be one of the last steps; you enter into them right before you're about to start a project.
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https://www.michigan.gov/dtmb/about/newsroom/all-news/2024/04/19/state-breaks-ground-on-new-public-health-and-environmental-science-laboratory
I'm confused, though. Are they moving ALL operations from the MLK facility or just some of them?
On that note... Apparently when they were adding on to the MLK lab recently they already were planning this new facility, the assumption/rumor among state employees was that they had already more or less worked out a deal for Emergent to buy the N MLK lab once it was vacated, so there was some cynicism amongst people involved about the money being put into the building. Long story short: look for Emergent to take over the N MLK lab, at least if they manage to get through their financial situation.
https://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/news/local/2021/05/05/emergent-biosolutions-eyes-dewitt-location-biopharma-facility/4921025001/