I'd also be strongly against any new buildings on the Capitol grounds, but I also support doing away with all parking on the grounds. I agree on the point of adding benches around the grounds to help it function better as a park, but I'd also note that the entire grounds could use a rehab/redesign.
Regarding the Senate's new building, I can't imagine any other likely options besides City Hall and Capitol View. They could build on the site of the Tower parking ramp or Constitution Hall, but those seem like long shots. Another thought is that they could build a building in the Capitol Complex similar to the Williams Building, but I'm not sure if the rest of the underground garage was designed to be built on top of, I kinda doubt it though.
It's always great to see another company relocate to the area, especially as this will be a fairly large supplier for the area with a 430k sq ft facility and over 400 jobs. As best I can tell, this will be going up on N Grand River, right across from the Marathon (I think it's still Marathon) distribution place.
Yes, good, good news. These kind of jobs are jobs with decent wages. I hope as the region continues to go after these jobs that maybe they'll find their way closer back into the core on some of the unused or underused industrial sites.
EDIT: This appears to be near the 69/96 interchange.
I didn't realize they were going to do this so fast, and hadn't actually seen them doing the construction even though I'm in the area often: BWL Expansion
uesday, July 22 — The Lansing Board of Water and Light unveiled the expansion of 385 solar panels at the Cedar Street solar array Tuesday, almost tripling the generating power from 54 kW to 158 kW.
The expansion allows the collection of 817 panels along Cedar Street. The array sits above the 10-million-gallon drinking water reservoir, across from the Dye Water Conditioning Plant.
“Lansing is now the proud home of the largest municipal owned solar array in the state of Michigan,” said Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero.
BWL General Manager J. Peter Lark said the new solar panels cost a third less than the older panels and can produce approximately three times the output of power.
“Solar is great for the city, because it’s available when people need the power the most,” said Lark. “When it’s a hot, sunny day, we need the power for all the people running their air conditioning.”
...
The new panels are also angled at 30 degrees, adjusted from the older 40 degrees, to try and capture more sunlight.
“As these companies compete to make panels more efficient,” Knudstrup said, “we’re going to be able to generate more power with newer panels.”
A new community solar project was also announced, allowing companies and organizations to set up solar arrays from which BWL customers can purchase the generated power, said Lark, without installing the panels on their homes.
...
This certainly answers a lot of question we had about the efficiency of the new panels vs. the old ones and how they can get so much more wattage out of this.
On a side note, that picture really shows how much infill is needed along Cedar and Larch around here. You don't really fill it until you're in the air, but this view makes Lansing look really, really small town despite this being the southeastern edge of downtown.
The Penfil Apartments are featured in City Pulse's Eyesore of the week, in the article they mention that the owners say the building will be reopened by October as the Avenue Apartments. October would seem a little optimistic for completion, but it's good to have it confirmed that this building is being rehabbed.
This is great! I wonder what kind of prices they are aiming for, because the neighborhood around it has declined quite a bit. I've always thought of this area along both Kalamazoo and Michigan east of Larch as being the next frontier. Because it's kind of on a hill, there is so much you could develop in this area and bring up the land values with the kind of views this area offers of the downtown skyline and then simply being in close proximity to downtown.
I've imagined that this area would be great to see an assortment of rowhouses and low rise apartment buildings similar to Penfil along Eighth, Hosmer, Eureka and Prospect while sticking to mixed use buildings along the main streets. I'd also really like to see the two bigger warehouses along Hosmer reused also (the one in the 600 block and the one at Hazel and Hosmer). I couldn't agree more on this area being the frontier, if downtown takes off the way I expect it to I would expect the southeastern edge of downtown to approach Hazel and Pennsylvania, probably filling in all the way west to REO Town. That's looking decades into the future though.
DELTA TWP. — General Motors Co. is considering a $37 million expansion of its Lansing Delta Township assembly plant where three of its popular full-size crossovers are built, local economic development officials said today.
The Detroit carmaker is planning to seek a tax incentive from Lansing that would cut real property taxes in half for 12 years, Lansing Economic Area Partnership Inc. said. The incentives are expected to be introduced Monday at Lansing City Council.
Lansing has a tax-sharing agreement with Delta Township that covers the plant. LEAP says the project would raise $4 million in new taxes despite the incentives and proceeds would be split between the city and township.
Lansing is crushing it when it comes to manufacturing, lately. If Bernero is able to entice a foreign automaker to set up shop, here, then I'll know we've made it for good. I'm still wanting to see him go after Fiat or Volkswagon hard.
Comments
Regarding the Senate's new building, I can't imagine any other likely options besides City Hall and Capitol View. They could build on the site of the Tower parking ramp or Constitution Hall, but those seem like long shots. Another thought is that they could build a building in the Capitol Complex similar to the Williams Building, but I'm not sure if the rest of the underground garage was designed to be built on top of, I kinda doubt it though.
It's always great to see another company relocate to the area, especially as this will be a fairly large supplier for the area with a 430k sq ft facility and over 400 jobs. As best I can tell, this will be going up on N Grand River, right across from the Marathon (I think it's still Marathon) distribution place.
EDIT: This appears to be near the 69/96 interchange.
This certainly answers a lot of question we had about the efficiency of the new panels vs. the old ones and how they can get so much more wattage out of this.
On a side note, that picture really shows how much infill is needed along Cedar and Larch around here. You don't really fill it until you're in the air, but this view makes Lansing look really, really small town despite this being the southeastern edge of downtown.
Eyesore of the week - Penfil Apartments
Lansing is crushing it when it comes to manufacturing, lately. If Bernero is able to entice a foreign automaker to set up shop, here, then I'll know we've made it for good. I'm still wanting to see him go after Fiat or Volkswagon hard.