General Lansing Development

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  • Thanks, I found the page about this move at Capital Gains. I have been thinking that a high end restaurant may have of hard time in that spot, it is very large, there would be a lot of seats to fill every night. I'm thinking one or two smaller cafe type restaurants would do better. If they would have done a bit more in decor and direction, and promotion [getting people down there] the sandwich shop could have made it. It is good that there will be more people working downtown.

  • @MichMatters, where did you find the census info? There are some people I need to educate on Lansing growth that have the view Lansing is failing. It's really bothersome how many from Ann Arbor and Grand Rapids can be so ignorant as to what's going on here.

  • I have never understood why people from G.R. and A.A. are so arrogant. In G.R. I think their Calvinist views that they are descend [by God!] to be better may have something to do with it. They simply have do not time or interest in people or places the they see as inferior. Betsy DeVos comes to mind. As for A.A. they are just delusional!

  • Lymon,

    https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/popest/data/tables.html

    Here you can access the county-level and metropolitan-level data. The sub-county (city, village and township) estimates don't come out until late June/early July. Ann Arbor and Grand Rapids started out the decade much stronger, but Lansing is looking to have just about caught up in terms of percentage growth.

  • @gbinlansing I live in both Grand Rapids and Lansing at this point in time (apartment in Lansing/house in Grand Rapids). This isn't the spot to get into a debate on why lumping an entire city or region into a singular category is narrow minded, but I will say this... I am a Lansing loyalist and excited to see what the future holds for this city, however, spend an afternoon in downtown Grand Rapids or Ann Arbor, and you'll quickly feel the difference of energy. Am I saying Lansing doesn't have things going for it? Absolutely not. Old town is still making headway, Michigan Ave is making the right steps to live up to it's potential as a downtown corridor and REO is starting to get some legs. However, the biggest problem I see our city having, is that everything is so segmented.

    GR and AA have done an excellent job of starting from the center, and building out. Lansing is doing the opposite. Starting on the outside and building back towards the center. Part of that is due to goofy infrastructure and design. I get it can't be perfect, but if you look at most successful re-gentrification movements in a major city, it works because there is momentum. When you try to build momentum without having a common center point, it takes FOREVER. I've have lived in downtown Lansing for the last 10 years, and quite honestly, outside of what Gillespie has contributed, not much has changed. Washington square has less nightlife, events and activity than it did 5 years ago. Why is that?

    I think Lansing can take some tips from other areas that are doing things successfully. Does that mean mimicking every move that GR or AA are making? Absolutely not, but there could definitely be more unification on a common cause for Lansing. I think that's the biggest thing this city is missing.

    People talk about wanting to see new restaurants, entertainment, community events and growth in Lansing, and then spend their Friday nights at Tequila Cowboy in the Lansing Mall. Seriously?

    Just my two cents as someone who wants to see this city do well...

  • I was attempting a slight bit of humor, towards our neighbors. that being said, some of our neighbors are rather chauvinistic about their communities. They have managed to keep or recreate a center city, so maybe they should be rightly proud. In the case of Ann Arbor the major campuses of the university are in the city center or downtown, and have remained there, right next to the business district. Here the campus was sited outside the city center as it was an agriculture college, the city center historically moved from North Lansing [mid 19th century] to North and South Washington Avenues [late 19th early 20th] so already we broke the development- redevelopment in one place cycle, we moved on to a new center. Then we decided to tear most of our 19th and 20th century city down, further reducing the urban center's history, density and population. So our situation has been very different than our neighbors, and of course we can learn from that difference.

  • A really interesting read on Lansing's challenge keeping tech grads in the area, though, that seems to be changing. Mostly, it seems that the city is wedged in between much larger metropolitan areas, so it has to sell itself in a different way.

  • edited March 2017

    This is illegal (from the article above),

    So Lansing companies are trying to find better ways to compete. To start with, Taiym and other CIOs in the region have agreed to stop luring talented employees from one another.

    Apple and Google have been sued for their collusion to restrict job transfers and prevent wages from increasing. It's terrible that this is now happening here and that the author of the story provided zero pushback.

  • Like they did with the former Napa store across from Lansing Brewing Company on Shiawassee, the Gillespie's are fixing up the old Corner Bar building at the corner. They've fixed the roof and redone the parapet and I imagine with the boards slanted over the windows that something must be going on inside.

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