It is weird and it will severely limit future growth if they don't allow downtown to expand north. I've complained about essentially the same thing in downtown Lansing, there's essentially one street with storefronts and that massively limits the walkability of the area. As the Grand River corridor fills in EL will have to decide whether to allow the footprint of downtown to grow.
The flipside of this is that if they do allow nodes of denser development to extend off of Grand River then having a long, dense urban corridor with several downtown/city center areas extending off of it could be massively beneficial to the area.
...although they are allowing for some depth along the current downtown corridor, the delta, and along the stretch of Grand River that the Hub is going to occupy. This situation is really a consequence of a lack of historical planning and building before the 20th century; the downtown is now pinned between campus to the south and the historical residential neighborhoods to the north and west, so it can only grow along Grand River to the east. Had EL been platted and grown more organically since the university was founded (1847), I think there would be more of a traditional, gridded, built-up downtown area between Abbot and Bailey, running back from campus to the Burcham street area.
Your comparison to a Detroit neighborhood is an interesting one, I often think of EL as a "streetcar-suburb" of Lansing, although this comparison is not strictly historically accurate.
It seems to me that projects with the least government involvement charge right ahead, while the projects looking for lots of funds etc. take forever to get going.
I was impressed by the huge construction crane at the site up the street. I have never seen a crane like that in Lansing. I guess I am kind of a nerdy guy as I find just seeing that crane very exciting! It is going to be fun and interesting to watch such large building going up on Grand River Avenue.
I think East Lansing ended up "that way" because of the university's location of course. It was a small town that had the open land at the east and west. The north was developed residential before automobile era and south had the school and its lands, to the east and west is where there was room to grow along Grand River Avenue.
I think the biggest problem is that, for some reason, knocking down old, architecturally uninteresting homes in East Lansing is considered impossible. Downtowns grow by redeveloping adjacent residential areas. To give an extreme example, Harlem in Manhattan was - for a long time - a cute village. They smashed that to pieces to build an urban city over it.
I'd actually argue a counter point. East Lansing's downtown is wide because it's main customer base comes from the full width of Michigan State's border with Grand River Ave. The "core" of activity in East Lansing comes from students crossing Grand River. Without a large downtown office worker base nor large downtown residential buildings, the main source of traffic that the downtown retail scene has comes from commuting students.
Downtown has been pushing further north over the years but it has been very slow. Right now there is basically two east/west streets of downtown, Grand River and Albert Ave. With the current construction for Center City this will push downtown further north.
Just a few years ago there was a house and small apartment building (3-4 units) located where HopCat is now. A few years before that there was a proposal to build an 11-story building on the north side of Albert Ave across from the colorful parking garage.
There was also a proposal to expand El Azteco but I haven't heard anything around that for a few years now. The Masonic Temple on MAC was converted to apartments something like 10-15 years ago.
There's restaurants on MAC across from the Marriott but none have survived more than 5 years. This seems to be the result of demand not the lack of supply.
A few modifications on that thought though... I don't think the student demand for business fronts along the eastern end of Grand River (past ~ Division) really picked up until after WWII, when the university was expanding rapidly. Up to that point, East Lansing had a compact downtown that was organically growing northwards along Abbot, westward along GR and Mich Ave, and eastward along GR. No surprise, since this was a central location to both the residential and university populations, and cars were not yet driving suburban sprawl. Additionally, the university started building vast tracts of "married student housing" on the south/west end of campus to accommodate the post-war boom of students, moving commercial development out of the original downtown location towards the Trowbridge area (NB - I'm not sure when exactly the Trowbridge commercial area started being built up, but I'm assuming not later than the 50s).
So, in summary, I don't think our viewpoints are in conflict. I just think that EL's relatively small population, and short era of pre-war development, were key for molding its linearly shaped downtown... had EL developed and grown a larger downtown earlier, like Lansing or Ann Arbor, I think the "student effect" on linearizing businesses eastward along GR would not have been as pronounced. But who knows... this is all hand waving on my part at this point in time!!!
I drove by the building site yesterday, and construction has begun in earnest - both of the older buildings have been demolished and the crews look to be starting on foundation work!
It is interesting to think about how downtown Lansing would be different if the University were located downtown, or if East Lansing had a layout that surrounded the campus as do many campus towns. I think this is the site to consider such thoughts even if they are hypothetical.
Mich - I don't know offhand, but I do know that they have put up a sign where they set up an office across the street - I'll make a note who they are the next time I drive by.
gbd - I agree!!! As a former resident of many college towns, I've thought about this often... I think the ideal sites for the university campus in Lansing would have been...
The river bank above the GR GM plant, where all of the industrialist mansions were built around the turn of the century. This would have been a fantastically scenic spot, as the campus would have been directly connected to the capitol, and could have expanded down to the confluence of the Grand and Red Cedar.
The Baker/Donora -> Sunnyside Ave stretch of the Red Cedar river. This area has nice rolling hills and a gentle slope down to the river, which could have been dammed up near the confluence of the RC and Sycamore creek to fill in the marshy areas and create a large water feature.
Mt Hope cemetary hill. Again, a great elevated spot with interesting topology and nearby water feature.
And for a more integrative city/college format
Campus could have been centralized on the Beal Street hill, overlooking old college field, which could have been dug out and turned into a small lake, with the campus buildings built up into the hills north of campus through Chesterfield Hills and Glencairn. This could/would have provided 3 sides of campus for the town to develop along away from the river, instead of having campus scrunched between Grand River Ave and the Red Cedar...
Comments
It is weird and it will severely limit future growth if they don't allow downtown to expand north. I've complained about essentially the same thing in downtown Lansing, there's essentially one street with storefronts and that massively limits the walkability of the area. As the Grand River corridor fills in EL will have to decide whether to allow the footprint of downtown to grow.
The flipside of this is that if they do allow nodes of denser development to extend off of Grand River then having a long, dense urban corridor with several downtown/city center areas extending off of it could be massively beneficial to the area.
Well, the linear layout isn't going to change much in the future according to the EL master plan (see page 171)...
https://www.cityofeastlansing.com/DocumentCenter/View/6813
...although they are allowing for some depth along the current downtown corridor, the delta, and along the stretch of Grand River that the Hub is going to occupy. This situation is really a consequence of a lack of historical planning and building before the 20th century; the downtown is now pinned between campus to the south and the historical residential neighborhoods to the north and west, so it can only grow along Grand River to the east. Had EL been platted and grown more organically since the university was founded (1847), I think there would be more of a traditional, gridded, built-up downtown area between Abbot and Bailey, running back from campus to the Burcham street area.
Your comparison to a Detroit neighborhood is an interesting one, I often think of EL as a "streetcar-suburb" of Lansing, although this comparison is not strictly historically accurate.
It seems to me that projects with the least government involvement charge right ahead, while the projects looking for lots of funds etc. take forever to get going.
I was impressed by the huge construction crane at the site up the street. I have never seen a crane like that in Lansing. I guess I am kind of a nerdy guy as I find just seeing that crane very exciting! It is going to be fun and interesting to watch such large building going up on Grand River Avenue.
I think East Lansing ended up "that way" because of the university's location of course. It was a small town that had the open land at the east and west. The north was developed residential before automobile era and south had the school and its lands, to the east and west is where there was room to grow along Grand River Avenue.
I think the biggest problem is that, for some reason, knocking down old, architecturally uninteresting homes in East Lansing is considered impossible. Downtowns grow by redeveloping adjacent residential areas. To give an extreme example, Harlem in Manhattan was - for a long time - a cute village. They smashed that to pieces to build an urban city over it.
There's no other way.
I'd actually argue a counter point. East Lansing's downtown is wide because it's main customer base comes from the full width of Michigan State's border with Grand River Ave. The "core" of activity in East Lansing comes from students crossing Grand River. Without a large downtown office worker base nor large downtown residential buildings, the main source of traffic that the downtown retail scene has comes from commuting students.
Downtown has been pushing further north over the years but it has been very slow. Right now there is basically two east/west streets of downtown, Grand River and Albert Ave. With the current construction for Center City this will push downtown further north.
Just a few years ago there was a house and small apartment building (3-4 units) located where HopCat is now. A few years before that there was a proposal to build an 11-story building on the north side of Albert Ave across from the colorful parking garage.
There was also a proposal to expand El Azteco but I haven't heard anything around that for a few years now. The Masonic Temple on MAC was converted to apartments something like 10-15 years ago.
There's restaurants on MAC across from the Marriott but none have survived more than 5 years. This seems to be the result of demand not the lack of supply.
That's an interesting point Jared!
A few modifications on that thought though... I don't think the student demand for business fronts along the eastern end of Grand River (past ~ Division) really picked up until after WWII, when the university was expanding rapidly. Up to that point, East Lansing had a compact downtown that was organically growing northwards along Abbot, westward along GR and Mich Ave, and eastward along GR. No surprise, since this was a central location to both the residential and university populations, and cars were not yet driving suburban sprawl. Additionally, the university started building vast tracts of "married student housing" on the south/west end of campus to accommodate the post-war boom of students, moving commercial development out of the original downtown location towards the Trowbridge area (NB - I'm not sure when exactly the Trowbridge commercial area started being built up, but I'm assuming not later than the 50s).
So, in summary, I don't think our viewpoints are in conflict. I just think that EL's relatively small population, and short era of pre-war development, were key for molding its linearly shaped downtown... had EL developed and grown a larger downtown earlier, like Lansing or Ann Arbor, I think the "student effect" on linearizing businesses eastward along GR would not have been as pronounced. But who knows... this is all hand waving on my part at this point in time!!!
I drove by the building site yesterday, and construction has begun in earnest - both of the older buildings have been demolished and the crews look to be starting on foundation work!
Great! Does anyone know who the general contractor/construction manager is for this project?
It is interesting to think about how downtown Lansing would be different if the University were located downtown, or if East Lansing had a layout that surrounded the campus as do many campus towns. I think this is the site to consider such thoughts even if they are hypothetical.
Mich - I don't know offhand, but I do know that they have put up a sign where they set up an office across the street - I'll make a note who they are the next time I drive by.
gbd - I agree!!! As a former resident of many college towns, I've thought about this often... I think the ideal sites for the university campus in Lansing would have been...
And for a more integrative city/college format
What are your thoughts???