The Hub at East Lansing

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  • edited December 2017

    The city called a special meeting for next Tuesday specifically for a scheduled public hearing on site plan approval and the special land use permit for The Hub.

    http://eastlansing.granicus.com/GeneratedAgendaViewer.php?view_id=2&event_id=1478

    With Aaron Stephens now sworn in on council, this project may not be in as much trouble as it might have seemed. Also, the packet includes a letter that the the Downtown Development Authority unanimously backs the project citing that it will not request TIF funds.

    EDIT: It seems the plans weren't changed, but rather that they sometimes reuse older documents in council packets. It's still 124 feet (roof deck)/144 feet (elevator overrun) project.

  • edited December 2017

    The site plan was approved for this project.

    The new building will house 347 apartments and 585 beds. Its site plan and special use permit were unanimously approved by the East Lansing City Council in a special meeting Tuesday evening.

    Parking was discussed during the meeting, as there will be 158 parking spaces for residents and people visiting the retail space.

    However, councilmembers said they did not view parking as a potential barrier.

    http://statenews.com/article/2017/12/new-apartment-building

    From ELi,

    According to Pierson and the Core Spaces development team, now that the proposal has been approved, they hope to move quickly in getting building permits in place, ideally beginning demolition in February with construction beginning sometime in Spring 2018.

    When asked by ELi if they anticipate any problems with the environmental remediation, Core Spaces’ representative responded that, due to plans for subterranean parking in the project, they would be removing the contaminated material anyway, so the environmental cleanup should cause no delay in the construction schedule.

    http://eastlansinginfo.org/content/council-approves-hub-5-0-vote

  • I was actually pretty optimistic about this one given the new council. I did not expect it to be unanimous, or that the council wasn't at all concerned with parking concerns like the planning commission was. Excellent outcome! I'm glad that the city council recognized the need for less parking when students are involved.

  • I think they were also very happy that no TIF money is involved here. It makes them look good and doesn't directly cost the city any money.

  • Now, we just have to work on getting the Park District back up and running. :)

    Seriously, though, if all three of these were under construction, that'd be huge. It'd be evidence to me of something that could set off further development in the area.

  • That would be a great sight to see, East Grand River lined with cranes. If it went on to the Red Cedar project we'd look like a boom town around here. Is the Park District project totally dead?

  • I don't think Park District is totally dead. I think they're working on a new approach, maybe scaled down.

    If Red Cedar also were under construction you would see construction all along CATA Route 1 :)

  • Very good news, and a great step forward in redeveloping what is probably one of the ugliest major intersections on Grand River in East Lansing.

  • Looks like demolition should be starting soon on the existing buildings - construction fences are up and the porta-potties are on the job site!

  • edited February 2018

    East Lansing's downtown is becoming quite a unique beast. It's building up along a single corridor almost to the exclusion of building out. Most American downtowns the size of East Lansing would have a couple of north-south and east-west corridors, instead of just one super long east-west corridor. It's almost like if you took a random stretch of a commercial street like Woodward in Midtown Detroit and just plopped it in the middle of a bunch of early 20th century suburban single-family homes.

    I don't know, maybe I'm alone in feeling like there's something weird about it. It's not necessarily a bad situation, just different.

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