It looks like the old Shell station at the southeast corner of Cedar and Miller was turn down some weeks ago, and a building is already being constructed at the corner. Does anyone know what it's supposed to be? That station had been emtpy for years, and being at a such heavily trafficked area, I wa surprised it stood empty so long. There is one other prominent vacant station property along Cedar that needs to be redeveloped that's been vacant for years: northwest corner of Cedar and Mount Hope. Unlike the other station(s), the owner has kept the property up and down a bit of site prep work which would make for a fairly easy reuse of the actual building on-site, though, I imagine it'd be torn down. With whenever they are going to start actual work on the old Walter French conversion, I see that site being some small-scale retail that could serve the residents of the newly renovated and converted school building.
I read somewhere that the building being constructed at the old gas station site at Cedar and Miller is a dental office. I believe I read it in the City Pulse a few months ago (eye-sores section), though I could be mistaken. But I am glad to see something being built at that corner.
I thought I remembered something like that but I couldn't find anything when I looked. Anyways, it's nice to see that gas station come down, especially to be replaced by a new building.
Kind of a pleasantly surprised, but an advisory committee put together by the district superintendent has put forth an ambitious proposal for the Lansing School District that would retain all three Lansing high schools, but with some major moves. I say this is a surprise because for a minute the school board was even mulling having only one high school in this city of over 114,000 not even a year ago.
The biggest change to the system would come for Eastern High School. As in former plans, they'd move it to the current Pattengill Middle School building. Unlike former plans, Fairview Elementary across the street would be torn down and a new Pattengill constructed in its place. The current Pattengill School building would be expanded to meet the needs of the new Eastern High School. Everett would also get substantial upgrades, and all three schools would get new academic focuses.
Not a done deal by far, but at first blush I like the sound of this. While the district has still lost students, with the city finally growing again for the first time in decades, it doesn't make much sense to not anticipate some eventual turnaround of district enrollment, and thus it doesn't make sense to keep trying to consolidate all of the high schools in a city of this size.
BTW, the Lansing Public Service Department continues with its series of the Riverpoint area showing it in 1979:
Everything looks like it currently does, mostly, with the only big differences being River Street still crosses the Grand. I had no idea it stayed up so long. I wonder when it was finally brought down? I kind of wish it was still there. The lack of it really cuts of and isolates the poor, little Cherry Point neighborhood. Other differences include that you can see parts of the REO Town plant, Elm Street Park is still under construction, and the westbound on-ramp from southbound Cedar and eastbound off-ramp unto southbound Cedar at I-496 are still up. Those actually weren't taken down until the most recent reconstruction of 496. Those were stom tricky ramps. The onbound ramp you'd have to wait at until traffic cleared, basically. The Deluxe Inn also looks like it's starting construction on this site. I believe a larger hotel stood here.
Yeah the westbound on-ramp looks tricky, but the eastbound off-ramp looks equally bad, as people would have to slow down to a crawl while on the freeway before being able to make that 90° turn.
Yeah, they were both equally bad, and both were largely redundant as can easily be seen now with how the ramps have been reworked. They built them to reduce left turns, but the traffic isn't so bad at the interchange that this creates a dangerous chokepoint.
The funny thing is that for those trying to get on I-496 westbound from Cedar, it's still fairly difficult to merge to get on the freeway when traffic is bad. It's still easy to be pushed onto St. Joseph.
Yeah, they were removed during the last major reconstruction of 496 which was between the spring and end of fall of 2001. This also included the addition of the merge/weave Pennsylvania and US-127 I remember them well because it used to be our main (and quickest) route to get to some family who lived on the southwest side. I say quickest because once you got on the freeway we didn't have any lights, while the route to get to MLK from Kalamazoo is a pretty slow slog even though that street isn't heavily trafficked. St. Joseph may have been a bit faster, but you have to deal with people getting on and off the freeway.
But, boy, sometimes you might have to wait for literally five minutes to get on the freeway since it took so long for a car entering on the freeway to build up speed. Westbound traffic had to be way the heck up on the hill near Pennsylvania before the folks on the westbound Cedar ramp felt comfortable getting on the auxillary lane, and then you had to worry about the cars on the main freeway as you were merging, while the cars in your weave lane were either trying to get on to the main freeway, too, or exit at St. Joseph. The funniest thing was the stop sign at the entrance. lol That problem still exists for the westbound ramp onto 496, but you have a good block extra space to work with.
The cement is cracking and Mayor Virg Bernero said overall Adado Riverfront Park is looking tired.
"We have older, but the amount of traffic, the amount of volume that goes in there ... that's our flagship brand, that's our flagship of the armada of parks - heavily utilized, right on the riverfront," explained Mayor Bernero. "It's a great beautiful park and it's due."
Seems to be in very preliminary stages, but it would be pretty neat. At least to see the park spruced up a bit. It would include a new permanent stage. Looks like it would be funded from the Waverly and Red Cedar Golf Courses when those are official.
As someone who grew up across from it, I'd been saying for years they needed to do something with it. It's embarrassing if you remember it from what it was before. The ampitheater is all rusted out and the fountain on the south end of the park used to be quite a beauty. Even the dock redo they did was half-assed. I'm so happy to hear this being redone. There also used to be a fountain in the river near the Lansing Center. It always surprised me that as the riverfront has gotten more popular over the years that they actually let quite a bit of the old elements detriorate. Along with a stage, I'd like to see the actual grass area kind of reined in a bit. I'm not talking something extreme like paving over half the park, but I'd love to see like a stone plaza perimeter around the edges. I'd like to see something more shaped.
Bernero wanted to fix up the park and add a permanent stage a few years ago, now (as well as put an outdoor ice rink near the city market), so this isn't a new idea. I forgot what exactly happened, but I'm glad to see he's stuck with the dream.
Comments
Update: Here's the link: City Pulse
The biggest change to the system would come for Eastern High School. As in former plans, they'd move it to the current Pattengill Middle School building. Unlike former plans, Fairview Elementary across the street would be torn down and a new Pattengill constructed in its place. The current Pattengill School building would be expanded to meet the needs of the new Eastern High School. Everett would also get substantial upgrades, and all three schools would get new academic focuses.
Not a done deal by far, but at first blush I like the sound of this. While the district has still lost students, with the city finally growing again for the first time in decades, it doesn't make much sense to not anticipate some eventual turnaround of district enrollment, and thus it doesn't make sense to keep trying to consolidate all of the high schools in a city of this size.
BTW, the Lansing Public Service Department continues with its series of the Riverpoint area showing it in 1979:
Everything looks like it currently does, mostly, with the only big differences being River Street still crosses the Grand. I had no idea it stayed up so long. I wonder when it was finally brought down? I kind of wish it was still there. The lack of it really cuts of and isolates the poor, little Cherry Point neighborhood. Other differences include that you can see parts of the REO Town plant, Elm Street Park is still under construction, and the westbound on-ramp from southbound Cedar and eastbound off-ramp unto southbound Cedar at I-496 are still up. Those actually weren't taken down until the most recent reconstruction of 496. Those were stom tricky ramps. The onbound ramp you'd have to wait at until traffic cleared, basically. The Deluxe Inn also looks like it's starting construction on this site. I believe a larger hotel stood here.
The funny thing is that for those trying to get on I-496 westbound from Cedar, it's still fairly difficult to merge to get on the freeway when traffic is bad. It's still easy to be pushed onto St. Joseph.
But, boy, sometimes you might have to wait for literally five minutes to get on the freeway since it took so long for a car entering on the freeway to build up speed. Westbound traffic had to be way the heck up on the hill near Pennsylvania before the folks on the westbound Cedar ramp felt comfortable getting on the auxillary lane, and then you had to worry about the cars on the main freeway as you were merging, while the cars in your weave lane were either trying to get on to the main freeway, too, or exit at St. Joseph. The funniest thing was the stop sign at the entrance. lol That problem still exists for the westbound ramp onto 496, but you have a good block extra space to work with.
Seems to be in very preliminary stages, but it would be pretty neat. At least to see the park spruced up a bit. It would include a new permanent stage. Looks like it would be funded from the Waverly and Red Cedar Golf Courses when those are official.
Bernero wanted to fix up the park and add a permanent stage a few years ago, now (as well as put an outdoor ice rink near the city market), so this isn't a new idea. I forgot what exactly happened, but I'm glad to see he's stuck with the dream.