Wherever you spend most of your time living the year of the count (6 months+) is where you're supposed to be counted. It's funny you should mention the LCC, as it was mentioned in a recent LSJ story that the local Census office was concentrating its efforts in Lansing in this area as well as a few other harder to count places.
Eyde Co. is expected to discuss the future of a downtown Lansing landmark at a news conference today.
The East Lansing developer is slated to outline what it says is the "fate" of the Knapp's Center building at 300 S. Washington Square at a 1 p.m .event.
This is out of left field. I seen on the news they said that Bernero was meeting with Eyde and State officials to discuss a possible development for the building. I'll be eagerly awaiting hearing more details on this one. I think the best case scenario would be that Eyde himself has decided to step up and get involved in (non state office) downtown development, he could be a major player.
Well it turns out Eyde wants to renovate the building for mixed-use office/retail/residential. Eyde would relocate their headquarters there. The catch: it all depends on if they can get Federal, State, and City tax incentives and loans.
The project includes residential on the top floor, office in the middle floors and retail/restaurant for the first floor. The Lansing EDC would open a business incubator in the building and Eyde would move its headquarters back into the building. The facade would be saved, although the architect at the event gave the impression that the details were still being worked out on exactly how to do that.
Incentives, according to the LSJ:
Eyde is seeking more than $21 million in tax credits, loans and grants, including:
» $7.3 million in state and federal tax credits for the rehabilitation of a historic building.
» A $5.4 million loan through the federal Housing and Urban Development Department.
» A $4.8 million federal New Market tax credit.
» A $2 million federal Brownfields Economic Development Initiative grant.
» $1.8 million in Michigan Business Tax credits.
I'm fairly confident that Eyde will get the incentives that he seeks, they're all pretty strait forward and I think it will be a very deserving project. For a second I was wondering if they were going to try to use the development bonds on this project. I think I'll a start a new topic for this project, as I'm sure there will be plenty of news, updates and discussion about it.
Here's a link to an LSJ archive of old articles and pictures of the Knapp's: LSJ Knapps Archive
Absolutely great news! This and the AF building are putting downtown Lansing on a solid upward trajectory. In my opinion, this was the last building in downtown that absolutely needed to be redeveloped.
A small chunk of news: The city of Lansing has a proposal in this weeks council meeting to buy the Yellow Cab building on Cedar St to raze and turn it into a parking lot. It states that the primary reason for acquiring the property is to facilitate future redevelopment of the site. This was one of the properties that were supposed to be part of the Kalamazoo Gateway development, I wonder if something is finally happening with that?
That would be awesome. However, I remember Townsend saying he was shelving Kalamazoo Gateway to focus on Ottawa and Butler. I doubt the current financial market would allow him to do both soon after eachother. So unless he's done a 180 and is focusing on the Gateway instead of Ottawa/Butler, I think it will be a parking lot for a while. Who knows though?!
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Eyde to discuss Knapp's building's future
http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/article/20100406/NEWS03/304050014/-1/RSS
Here's the LSJ story from this afternoon on the announcement.
Plus, they have some old photos and some stuff from their archives.
The project includes residential on the top floor, office in the middle floors and retail/restaurant for the first floor. The Lansing EDC would open a business incubator in the building and Eyde would move its headquarters back into the building. The facade would be saved, although the architect at the event gave the impression that the details were still being worked out on exactly how to do that.
Incentives, according to the LSJ:
Plus, Renaissance Zone tax-free status.
Here's a link to an LSJ archive of old articles and pictures of the Knapp's:
LSJ Knapps Archive