Yeah, it'd almost certainly be a (badly needed) downtown hotel. There is no way they are going to waste that site and those views of the capitol. It's an excellent site for a rather up-scale hotel brand.
BTW, the Lansing State Journal has a story, today, that I think exemplifies perfectly why you don't build the headquarters for a multinational corporation in a greenfield on the fringes of the urban area. Now, they are looking to upgrade the Jolly/Okemos intersection, but having to concede even major changes will only increase it's rating by one grade (from E-F to F-D).
- The Abigail - the main administration at the former School for the Blind site - is finally being renovated into about 44 affordable apartments. The city had been trying to get this down, forever, but were just now able to cobble together the creative financing of the project.
- I passed by he former Action Discount pawn shop, today, directly north of Rum Runners across from Oldsbmobile Park, and caught that it's going to be turned into something with "Distillery" in the name. I'm not sure if this is just another bar or an actual distillery, but it's good to see this old building reused instead of sitting vacant and/or meeting the wrecking ball like the old Abram Aerial Survey Building did next door.
I just saw the old pawn shop on Larch also, I think it said something about Lansing's first distillery. I remember hearing something about a distillery in the news, I looked back and found this story from Capital Gains: Sleepwalker Spirits and Ale aims to open Eastside distillery. I'm not sure if it's related, Sleepwalkers site only mentions opening a tap room at Allen Street Market. There's also a distillery at MSU, it could be somehow related: Red Cedar Spirits Facebook.
About City Hall, I remember the Senate being interested in the building. I'm not sure that the timing of the Senate moving to sell the Farnum Building followed by the City looking into selling City Hall are coincidence. It would be the perfect building for the Senate, it's the size they need, has basement parking and is directly adjacent to the Capitol and House buildings.
I passed by it, again, today. It said "American Spirit" distilleries.
I believe City Hall is actually smaller than the Farnum. I still think a hotel would be perfect at this site, perhaps something which also includes a few levels of residential and a ground floor restaurant. I'd hate to see the site wasted on more office space.
BTW, the LSJ put back out their photos on file of City Hall a few days ago.
The old city hall annex and post office before it was demolished (January 1957):
A year later. You can really see how clean it looked before the ugly screens they put on the window:
The old fountain in the lobby in 1967. I'm not sure if it's been removed, or if they just don't turn it on, anymore, but I've never noticed it.
City Hall is nearly twice the size of Farnum, which is only 78k sq ft. I can't find any official square footage for City Hall, but I remember hearing it was around 150k sq ft, which would agree with my SketchUp model. I'm pretty certain that if the timing works, which it looks like it may, the Senate will get City Hall, the past rumors coupled with the timing of their respective announcements makes it fairly likely in my mind. I really don't see a hotel there, there's little parking, no views on two sides and there's just so many other places you could put a hotel. I continue to think that office is a fine use for buildings along Capitol. Grand and its cross streets with Washington should be the focus of residential and retail growth, that'll be difficult enough.
This adds to the concerns of the LPD's move to HIll: The hidden cost of moving LPD. It also adds the interesting twist of Hepler trying to get first right of refusal on City Hall, he thinks apartments or a hotel would go good there. Whatever happens I don't think LPD moving to Hill is a good idea, the only real positive being the renovations to the building.
EDIT: Oh, goodness. Now the LSJ is reporting that there are rumors that the LDP could be moved to the MSP Headquarters, and the state senate would fill city hall. Though, it doesn't mention where MSP would go, probably back out to the secondary complex as was rumored pretty much right after they moved in. Why in the world did we build them a multi-million dollar fully-furnished and customized headquarters only for them to leave the thing within a few five years?
God, what a hot mess this all is. Musical buildings. This whole think has smelled fishy from the start. I'll be glad when the city's study is done concerning what to do with city hall, because it either feels like there is no rhyme to anyone's reason, at the moment, or someone's going to hit a payday, and it ain't gonna' be the city.
I think I mentioned before that MSP was moving to the General Office Building out at secondary, their move hasn't exactly been a secret around the State. The rumor at first was that the Feds wanted the building, which makes more sense. MSP's building would be nonwhere near large enough for police, city hall and courts, it'd have to about double in size. BTW, I'm not sure MSP ever intended to stay there, the building was too small for them at the start.
This also all but confirms the Senates interest in City Hall, and if the senate wants it they'll likely get it. I first heard they were interested in City Hall a year or two ago, apparently an in-the-know Senator was talking about it with a business owner I know downtown. As I said, I think the whole City Hall move revolves around the Senate buying the building.
Seeing these two things that heard as rumors awhile ago will certainly make me take more notice of some of the things I hear in the future though.
I just noticed that the construction - or at least site prep - of the Lansing Grand River logistics center has begun. It's much smaller than I thought. It's located right at the back of the current assembly plant. I wish I could see some site plans of the site just to see how much space the logistics center and stamping pant will take up of the old LCA site.
I was also going down Washington Avenue and noticed the old motorcycle bar/club across from BWL's headquarters has had its facade stripped, and that further down the street near Mt. Hope that Reach Studios has gotten around to their expansion with the demolition of one of the buildings in the center of the block.
Guess there is no CATA thread - but I heard yesterday that there is going to be a new CATA route providing hourly service between LCC's Main and West Campus. I've wanted this for basically the whole time I've lived here - and apparently so have many, many students. Will run from about 7AM until 10PM. Don't know any other details.
Comments
BTW, the Lansing State Journal has a story, today, that I think exemplifies perfectly why you don't build the headquarters for a multinational corporation in a greenfield on the fringes of the urban area. Now, they are looking to upgrade the Jolly/Okemos intersection, but having to concede even major changes will only increase it's rating by one grade (from E-F to F-D).
- The Abigail - the main administration at the former School for the Blind site - is finally being renovated into about 44 affordable apartments. The city had been trying to get this down, forever, but were just now able to cobble together the creative financing of the project.
- I passed by he former Action Discount pawn shop, today, directly north of Rum Runners across from Oldsbmobile Park, and caught that it's going to be turned into something with "Distillery" in the name. I'm not sure if this is just another bar or an actual distillery, but it's good to see this old building reused instead of sitting vacant and/or meeting the wrecking ball like the old Abram Aerial Survey Building did next door.
About City Hall, I remember the Senate being interested in the building. I'm not sure that the timing of the Senate moving to sell the Farnum Building followed by the City looking into selling City Hall are coincidence. It would be the perfect building for the Senate, it's the size they need, has basement parking and is directly adjacent to the Capitol and House buildings.
I believe City Hall is actually smaller than the Farnum. I still think a hotel would be perfect at this site, perhaps something which also includes a few levels of residential and a ground floor restaurant. I'd hate to see the site wasted on more office space.
BTW, the LSJ put back out their photos on file of City Hall a few days ago.
The old city hall annex and post office before it was demolished (January 1957):
A year later. You can really see how clean it looked before the ugly screens they put on the window:
The old fountain in the lobby in 1967. I'm not sure if it's been removed, or if they just don't turn it on, anymore, but I've never noticed it.
The lobby looking east (February 1959):
God, what a hot mess this all is. Musical buildings. This whole think has smelled fishy from the start. I'll be glad when the city's study is done concerning what to do with city hall, because it either feels like there is no rhyme to anyone's reason, at the moment, or someone's going to hit a payday, and it ain't gonna' be the city.
This also all but confirms the Senates interest in City Hall, and if the senate wants it they'll likely get it. I first heard they were interested in City Hall a year or two ago, apparently an in-the-know Senator was talking about it with a business owner I know downtown. As I said, I think the whole City Hall move revolves around the Senate buying the building.
Seeing these two things that heard as rumors awhile ago will certainly make me take more notice of some of the things I hear in the future though.
I was also going down Washington Avenue and noticed the old motorcycle bar/club across from BWL's headquarters has had its facade stripped, and that further down the street near Mt. Hope that Reach Studios has gotten around to their expansion with the demolition of one of the buildings in the center of the block.