East Village workshop. Discussion Only
Pierce Company
Public hearing to consider the Burcham Hills Approval Requested
Center II Project Plan of the City East Lansing
Economic Development Corporation.
Tim Dempsey M-78 and Lake Lansing Road Project – Discussion &
Proposed Brownfield Plan & Setting Date Action Requested
for Public Hearing
I plan on attending the meeting, as I want to hear the discussions for all of these. If I go, I'll put up my summary of the meeting here. It starts at 6:00pm at East Lansing City Hall in Conference Room A.
On Monday, Hagadorn road will be closed from Grand River to Shaw Lane as the Ingham County Road Commission installs a new bridge. The new bridge will be six lanes wide, as the previous/current one is four lanes wide. The pedestrian bridge will stay in use during the construction. The new bridge is estimated to cost about $2.3 million. Construction is expected to be finished by mid-August.
I went to the meeting on Tuesday for the East Village plan, and looking back, I am surprised that I didn't put an update on here about that.
The concepts were still not that concrete, not knowing how tall or how dense buildings would be. The most information that could be had from the different designs were the street makeup and park/entertainment area design.
Two of the four only used half of the site, and the other two used the whole site. One of them featured a lake that was larger than a football field, and others had small "rivers" flowing near the river that would have small pedestrian bridges over them. The "rivers" would be fake and only about 2 feet deep, and not connected to the actual Red Cedar river, due to regulations and laws that prohibit modifying a river's edge. The look would be that it actually did connect to the river, with the exception of the obvious cleaner water. There were large sections of stores near the river, and almost all of the buildings would have ground floor retail.
All of the designs did have a focus point near the river, and a couple of the designs showed mixed uses for the focus point, as a possible water fountain in which the fountain could be turned off and used as an amphitheater, and others like the large lake being used as an ice-skating rink.
If I can recall right, all of the designs had a cinema in them, but the movie theater would have housing above it to try and make the box-shaped building a little more appealing.
I would estimate that about half of the residences would be geared towards undergraduate students, another quarter to grad students, and another quarter to market-rate housing.
One of the concerns raised by Vic Loomis was the problem that the East Village may pull businesses out of downtown East Lansing and in to the East Village, in essence just relocating the downtown. The Pierce Company and 5+ Design didn't seem to be too worried about it, and just said that it should spill over development and just create more competition for companies.
I sure hope that if any company decides to relocate to the East Village, it will be leaving either the Meridian Mall area or the Eastwood Towne Center.
The Dublin Square Irish Pub is expected to open at the end of this week or next week. This is the project in the old East Lansing post office and the former location for the Evergreen Grill.
Yeah, as much as I would have loved to see a 12 story condo high-rise in East Lansing, it doesn't fit that block that much. I would expect something about half the height, or maybe up to 8 stories at the maximum. I don't think there is enough infill nearby to warrant such a big project, and I think that is one of the reasons why it looks like City Center 2 has been stalled for so long.
But....... on the topic of City Center 2, Scene Metrospace will be moving very soon to the new location next to Geogio's to make way for demolition of the buildings and construction of City Center 2. I have a feeling that the design has changed from the previous renderings, but I haven't seen anything to confirm my suspicions.
The area of Virginia Ave is near Burcham and Hagadorn, between East Lansing High School and MacDonald Middle School.
Consideration of a Special Use Permit and Site Plan; An application from
Tass Mekani to construct a 3-story, 78-room hotel on the vacant 1.5 acre
property at the rear of 1100 Trowbridge Road. The building would include a
meeting room and an indoor pool. The entire site is approximately 3.2 acres
in size; the front part of the site is occupied by an existing two-story, 55-room
hotel and 4,500 square feet of leasable retail space. The property is zoned in
the B-2 Retail Sales Business District.
Consideration of a Special Use Permit and Site Plan; An application to
demolish the existing gas station/car wash building at 111 E. Saginaw and the
adjacent restaurant building at 135 E. Saginaw and construct a new onestory,
14,564 square ft. drugstore building (Rite-Aid) with two drive-through
pick-up windows. The site is 2.13 acres in size and is zoned in the B-2 Retail
Sales Business District.
Set for Public Hearing on April 3, 2007 Ordinance No. 1167; An application
from the CADA Investment Group, L.L.C., to rezone 16.96 acres of the former
Public Works property on Merritt Road from the RM-32 Multiple Family District
to the B-2 Retail Sales Business District.
I'm not sure how much I like the Rite Aid that is being proposed, I don't particularly like drive-thrus, but there isn't much pedestrian movement on that part of Saginaw. I think the city should require the developer to include sidewalks along the front of the property. Pedestrian mobility needs to start sometime on Saginaw.
The previous gas station that was there had a problem with robberies, due to the way the city required the gas station be developed. I would believe that the city would require the same style gas station if another were to be built or reoccupied, and that may be what turns off that use.
The work that is going on at the corner of Hagadorn and Mt. Hope in East Lansing/Okemos is for another student housing complex dubbed "The Hamptons". The State News is reporting that it will be 1,200 sq ft (an obvious typo, unless they mean per unit). They don't mention how many units, but they do say that there is plans for first floor retail.
Comments
I plan on attending the meeting, as I want to hear the discussions for all of these. If I go, I'll put up my summary of the meeting here. It starts at 6:00pm at East Lansing City Hall in Conference Room A.
The concepts were still not that concrete, not knowing how tall or how dense buildings would be. The most information that could be had from the different designs were the street makeup and park/entertainment area design.
Two of the four only used half of the site, and the other two used the whole site. One of them featured a lake that was larger than a football field, and others had small "rivers" flowing near the river that would have small pedestrian bridges over them. The "rivers" would be fake and only about 2 feet deep, and not connected to the actual Red Cedar river, due to regulations and laws that prohibit modifying a river's edge. The look would be that it actually did connect to the river, with the exception of the obvious cleaner water. There were large sections of stores near the river, and almost all of the buildings would have ground floor retail.
All of the designs did have a focus point near the river, and a couple of the designs showed mixed uses for the focus point, as a possible water fountain in which the fountain could be turned off and used as an amphitheater, and others like the large lake being used as an ice-skating rink.
If I can recall right, all of the designs had a cinema in them, but the movie theater would have housing above it to try and make the box-shaped building a little more appealing.
I would estimate that about half of the residences would be geared towards undergraduate students, another quarter to grad students, and another quarter to market-rate housing.
One of the concerns raised by Vic Loomis was the problem that the East Village may pull businesses out of downtown East Lansing and in to the East Village, in essence just relocating the downtown. The Pierce Company and 5+ Design didn't seem to be too worried about it, and just said that it should spill over development and just create more competition for companies.
I sure hope that if any company decides to relocate to the East Village, it will be leaving either the Meridian Mall area or the Eastwood Towne Center.
Here is a link to an article in the State News: http://www.statenews.com/article.phtml?pk=40031
But....... on the topic of City Center 2, Scene Metrospace will be moving very soon to the new location next to Geogio's to make way for demolition of the buildings and construction of City Center 2. I have a feeling that the design has changed from the previous renderings, but I haven't seen anything to confirm my suspicions.
The area of Virginia Ave is near Burcham and Hagadorn, between East Lansing High School and MacDonald Middle School.