There is an interesting artical in the City Pulse about the redevelopment of the S. MLK Blvd. and the Logan Square. It includes the history of the shopping center. I am actually "old"! enough to remember when it opened. [and the elephant escape! Poor thing!] My mom stopped going to our neighborhood market on Logan and Hammond Street and started shopping mainly at Kroger's and the other big stores that opened there. It would be great to see this area redeveloped. A true parking lot crater.
A full Planning Board packet just dropped. Of note are some details about H Inc.'s plan for that area by Saginaw and N Pennsylvania. It looks very copy and paste 4-unit, mini rowhouses. I hope the city or others can encourage him to add some variety. Otherwise it will be cool to finally see some development after so much demolition.
Also up is the first step to purchase property for the music venue and media center at Washington Ave. and W Lenawee St. I wish it was still going to be big enough to rival Wharton and had the apartment component, but I am still supportive of it being approved.
I'm also pretty surprised at the scale of the proposed Hepler development. The site plan is hard to read but I'm seeing it as tearing down all the houses on Quaker Ct, filling up the vacant lots on Park Terrace while maybe taking out a few more houses, take up the that entire block of Penn up to May St, possibly add a new through street to May and take out everything on Saginaw, unfortunately including the old brick commercial building there.
Besides the loss of that brick commercial building on Saginaw I'm quite happy with the look/layout of this development. It's dense, provides a lot of infill, is in an area desperately needing some love and I personally don't hate the look of the buildings, it'd be nice if they'd diversify the designs at least a little but I generally like the modern look for something different and it modern designs tend to turn out a lot better when on a budget. 240 units of infill on mostly vacant land in a struggling but well positioned neighborhood is no small deal. With this, the Prudden parking lots and maybe even the eventual redevelopment of the factories north of Oakland, the area around the old Prudden Factory could really come into its own.
The yellow appear to be landbank and the green look like they're owned by different entities, I assume related to the redevelopment effort. What I'm not sure about are the orange properties, they appear to be owned by the same entities that own the green properties.
@MichMatters As far as I can tell all the units in that site plan are on either Landbank or developer owned land, the site plan just doesn't show them using all the available land.
@gbdinlansing You're talking about the small building on the Lake Trust block? I do think those latest plans for the performing arts center show them using that building as-is for offices. I've been operating under the assumption that the developer of the block probably eventually plans to build a taller building on the NW corner of Washington & Hillsdale, it's about the right footprint for mid/high rise apartment building.
The subdivision ordinance definitely needs an update so the city does not have to go through these bureaucratic processes. It reminded me of a case last year - the guy who bought that section of North Cemetery for multiple quadplexes. I just happened to drive by the other day and saw the site all dug up so it got me curious of its status. Apparently he has changed the plan to three duplexes but kept the large parking lot. Not having done the calculations for lot coverage, but there seems to be space for more buildings so I wonder if he is still planning on future phases.
I don't think Hepler has been very clear with his plans since that draft diagram doesn't really make sense with the street layout. I am interested to learn more at Planning Board on Tuesday. My impression is that he will keep trying to obtain the rest of the properties and not attempt organic infill. I am guessing it will have an East Village feel to it.
Little inside scoop about 520 S Washington: apparently the building is in much better shape than expected so it will be housing the Public Media Center offices with space for other potential tenants. So it won't be knocked down and it frees up space in the performance venue. I am sure the façade will be updated to match the new building.
Thanks for the information on that building. It is a nice enough looking building but seems small for most proposes. If I remember correctly, it was one of the first "modern" buildings on the block, though I cannot remember what was there before, it was not part of the Urban Renewal project that took place north of Michigan Ave.
The construction of new apartment buildings on Cedar [Ballpark North?] was well underway as I drove by yesterday. There were already poured foundation walls and lots of excavation going on. The new building site on Shiawassee was also busy with two large cranes there.
Comments
Also up is the first step to purchase property for the music venue and media center at Washington Ave. and W Lenawee St. I wish it was still going to be big enough to rival Wharton and had the apartment component, but I am still supportive of it being approved.
Besides the loss of that brick commercial building on Saginaw I'm quite happy with the look/layout of this development. It's dense, provides a lot of infill, is in an area desperately needing some love and I personally don't hate the look of the buildings, it'd be nice if they'd diversify the designs at least a little but I generally like the modern look for something different and it modern designs tend to turn out a lot better when on a budget. 240 units of infill on mostly vacant land in a struggling but well positioned neighborhood is no small deal. With this, the Prudden parking lots and maybe even the eventual redevelopment of the factories north of Oakland, the area around the old Prudden Factory could really come into its own.
@gbdinlansing You're talking about the small building on the Lake Trust block? I do think those latest plans for the performing arts center show them using that building as-is for offices. I've been operating under the assumption that the developer of the block probably eventually plans to build a taller building on the NW corner of Washington & Hillsdale, it's about the right footprint for mid/high rise apartment building.
I don't think Hepler has been very clear with his plans since that draft diagram doesn't really make sense with the street layout. I am interested to learn more at Planning Board on Tuesday. My impression is that he will keep trying to obtain the rest of the properties and not attempt organic infill. I am guessing it will have an East Village feel to it.
Little inside scoop about 520 S Washington: apparently the building is in much better shape than expected so it will be housing the Public Media Center offices with space for other potential tenants. So it won't be knocked down and it frees up space in the performance venue. I am sure the façade will be updated to match the new building.