I just meant that I doubt LBWL can develop sufficient renewables, certainly within their service area, to replace Eckert anyway. Even now the bulk of their renewable's portfolio is landfill-gas generated electricity purchased from Granger. (Which is fine but... not the sort of energy production you see put people on the cover of pro-renewables documents!)
PS - what happened with the Dunham's in Frandor Plus?
So this is kind of a random question, but it's development related so I'll risk it - what happened to the McDonald's in Frandor? Used to be a fine place, one of my former students managed there, so I enjoyed seeing her when I dropped in. Then it got renovated. Now I believe it has two drivethroughs, which I figured to be the main purpose of the renovation. But they changed around the interior, got rid of all the Oldsmobile stuff so now it looks like generic McDonald's, moved stuff around so that now I believe they have less seating than before, installed a screen to show which order is ready that I've never seen them use, and the speed of service has probably decreased by a factor of 3. (Actually the employees seem much more chatty, much less dedicated to efficiency than they used to be. My former student also changed jobs about the same time, wonder if many people did. Maybe they cut wages?) Went there tonight, 5:30 PM on a Saturday, and the only people there besides me were a couple possibly homeless men, in any case one asked me for money (inside the McDonald's), and the other warned me that "oh man, so and so spilled beer on that seat earlier".
So... what happened? From the outside what it looks like is it used to be owned by a Lansing resident who loved the city and cared about his business, then he sold it to some company that "by golly we know what a McDonald's by an interstate is supposed to look like" who changed a bunch of things and had no idea how much they'd hurt the place. That's 100% speculation mind you, that's just what it looks like from the outside. Yeah it's just McDonald's, but kind of sad to see all the same.
Oh, the plan was never to build enough renewables to replace Eckert. That's why they are talking about a mix of things including energy efficiency, renewable, and building another natural gas plant. In fact, knowing how hard it is to replace a coal-fired power plants production, The REO Town cogeneration plant was basically the first phase of replacing Eckert.
BTW, did you not hear about their solar array they are going to put up out in Delta Township near the GM plant? It's planned to be one of the largest in the country. When they announced it earlier this month it was going to be the largest east of the Mississippi, and then a few days later DTE over in Detroit announced and even larger solar project.
Dunham's at Frandor Plus was turned into some technology center or something. Not exactly sure what they do. The building certainly doesn't look any worse than what it was, though.
I see, interesting photo. No there is still a Dunham's there, that's why I was confused, but the building doesn't look like that. And "Inovalon", which is probably the "tech center" you're thinking of, is right next door. If Dunham's used to occupy that whole building they don't anymore.
Also that whole development does the best job clearing snow, they seem to really love their parking lot.
Don't know - walking by it rather often as I do, it certainly looks like a call center. The biggest collection of cubicles you have ever seen, my friends.
Some small comings-and-goings from the latest city council meeting (January 11) involving parking expansions:
- Community Mental Health down on the 800 east block of Jolly Road about halfway between Cedar and Penn wants to add another parking lot directly east of approximately 80 spots. I appears it'll take out a two single family homes directly east of the facility. The planning commission recommends approval of the special land use permit with conditions, mostly buffering tactics agaisnt the few remaining city homes it'll leave on this side of the street. The plans also show a proposed 40,000 square foot expansion directly to the south and adjacent to the existing facility on what's currently a small parking lot, though the rezoning request makes no mention of that, probably because it doesn't require rezoning or special land use permit.
- Stiles Landscaping, which owns the former Lansing Gardens property, wants to add more parking, garage, and loading areas at that site down the street from Community Mental Health (in between Penn and Aurelius) as part of its move from the site from a property on nearby Aurelius Road. The planning commission recommends approval with conditions.
There's an item in this weeks city council packet setting a public hearing for a PILOT tax incentive for the Saboury Building at 1113 N Washington. This was proposed quite awhile ago and I thought it was dead, here's a rendering of the initial proposal (there's no new details in the council packet):
Comments
PS - what happened with the Dunham's in Frandor Plus?
So... what happened? From the outside what it looks like is it used to be owned by a Lansing resident who loved the city and cared about his business, then he sold it to some company that "by golly we know what a McDonald's by an interstate is supposed to look like" who changed a bunch of things and had no idea how much they'd hurt the place. That's 100% speculation mind you, that's just what it looks like from the outside. Yeah it's just McDonald's, but kind of sad to see all the same.
BTW, did you not hear about their solar array they are going to put up out in Delta Township near the GM plant? It's planned to be one of the largest in the country. When they announced it earlier this month it was going to be the largest east of the Mississippi, and then a few days later DTE over in Detroit announced and even larger solar project.
Dunham's at Frandor Plus was turned into some technology center or something. Not exactly sure what they do. The building certainly doesn't look any worse than what it was, though.
Also that whole development does the best job clearing snow, they seem to really love their parking lot.
- Community Mental Health down on the 800 east block of Jolly Road about halfway between Cedar and Penn wants to add another parking lot directly east of approximately 80 spots. I appears it'll take out a two single family homes directly east of the facility. The planning commission recommends approval of the special land use permit with conditions, mostly buffering tactics agaisnt the few remaining city homes it'll leave on this side of the street. The plans also show a proposed 40,000 square foot expansion directly to the south and adjacent to the existing facility on what's currently a small parking lot, though the rezoning request makes no mention of that, probably because it doesn't require rezoning or special land use permit.
- Stiles Landscaping, which owns the former Lansing Gardens property, wants to add more parking, garage, and loading areas at that site down the street from Community Mental Health (in between Penn and Aurelius) as part of its move from the site from a property on nearby Aurelius Road. The planning commission recommends approval with conditions.