Sorry if the confusion is with me rather than how the article is written. Phase II (the orange rectangle below) is set for the parcel to the south, currently owned by the city. This is where CATA will house admin with a couple dozen more apartment above.
@citykid Thanks for clearing that up, I was under the impression that the project with the CATA offices was an entirely separate deal. Hopefully this means they'll be looking at it as a combined site in order to achieve a more sensible layout. I really hope they're not planning on having that entire block of Cherry still just be parking lot frontage, that'd be very disappointing.
@hood Planning and Zoning may have flubbed the layout review. The development team preferred to activate the Grand Ave. side and it was considered the better of the two layouts presented. Once phase II was announced recently they were told that the sites can be combined so they are looking at some revisions. One thing I learned is that MSHDA mandates x amount of parking for LIHTC points no matter the context of the site location. Allegedly they weren't receptive to the first request for a reduction even though this is for a lot of seniors and across the street from the bus station.
2 spaces per unit or greater for family developments.
1 space per unit or greater for independent senior developments.
0.8 spaces per unit or greater for developments providing congregate services
This may be too much wishful thinking but I'm hoping conditions will be different when the tax credits expire and there is an opportunity for a third building along Cherry rather than all the parking.
If being used as a combined site it'd seem much more wise to just do a single building utilizing the whole 2/3 of a block along Grand there then orient another building Lenawee or possibly oriented to Lenawee & Cherry, something similar to the below:
I noticed that the architect behind Riverview 220 is the same architect behind that site plan for the MLK & Hillsdale, they are obviously horrendous at coming up with urban site plans. I'm wondering, is there a way to get more involved in these processes? It seems there's a lot of avoidable and senseless oversights/mistakes being made or just plain lack of imagination.
@MichMatters If they build the first floor out of concrete/steel so that it can be in the flood plain with parking or whatever, then I'd love to see them orient one building to Kalamazoo & Cherry and the other to Grand & Lenawee. I'm not sure if they're going to want to hassle with building in a flood plain though, if not then fronting a building to Kalamazoo probably isn't going to happen. Hopefully they come back with something better than we saw.
The small townhouse project across from St Lawrence is fenced off and had a formal groundbreaking a couple days ago. It's being called an affordable housing project but also has "condos" in its name, I'm unsure if they're actually going to be condos or if they're just playing loose with their language. https://www.wilx.com/2023/08/16/affordable-housing-project-breaks-ground-lansing/
Cherry Hill - Since it was LIHTC dependent and the original developer didn't get it, I don't recall being informed there would eventually be a phase II so combining the parcels wasn't even on the radar to discuss. In a lot of cases zoning just makes sure it meets the code rather than suggesting reconfiguration, but maybe that should be changed. A provision was included in the amendment draft after the first phase drawing that does require building to the block face. I think they got special consideration for the floodplain, but it wasn't the right configuration to approve. Either way, they were told the parking can be combined as-is, but P&Z strongly suggests the parcels be combined to facilitate closer to what hood suggested since both buildings can fit as designed, just moved around. The architect agreed to discuss it with the developer but it depends on how far along their civil engineer is, etc. I have my fingers crossed.
Pointe West Condos - The units will be condominiumized so ICLB doesn't have to be a landlord or contract with that type of property management. They didn't get any special incentives from the city so you wouldn't find anything about it. I don't know the funding model, but affordable can be mean simply 60% AMI so that may not be a difficult target for them to hit. I'm interested to see how it works as middle-housing infill. We haven't really seen this type of product in Lansing.
I drove by Penn & Saginaw to check out what was going on and was a little disappointed to see the old commercial building tore down, I really wish they had try to save that. They're putting up some fencing around the corner lots where everything was already cleared. For some reason I was expecting to see more stuff go through council before anything happened here, did I miss something?
I only saw the OPRA rescinded for the building attached to MW lofts that's becoming more residential, is there something else working its way through for this project?
I started thinking it through and was wondering if the city would/should be offering tax incentives to raze an entire single-family neighborhood for new housing. I'm not so sure about that. Maybe this project actually will proceed with no major incentives.
The OPRA revocation at Prudden is interesting, for some reason I thought it was originally for the office project and it was pulled to resubmit for the upcoming residential rehab. Now I have no clue what they're doing.
Comments
This may be too much wishful thinking but I'm hoping conditions will be different when the tax credits expire and there is an opportunity for a third building along Cherry rather than all the parking.
I noticed that the architect behind Riverview 220 is the same architect behind that site plan for the MLK & Hillsdale, they are obviously horrendous at coming up with urban site plans. I'm wondering, is there a way to get more involved in these processes? It seems there's a lot of avoidable and senseless oversights/mistakes being made or just plain lack of imagination.
https://www.wilx.com/2023/08/16/affordable-housing-project-breaks-ground-lansing/
It was also reported that the new playground/pier in Adado new Saginaw St is slated to open in mid-Septemeber. This should really help bring more attention to Adado when events aren't going on and make the west bank Rivertrail more active, maybe people will even start to use that amphitheater again.
https://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/news/local/2023/08/15/accessible-playground-lansing-adado-park-ada/70573503007/
MSHDA Standards of Design. Maryanne Vukonich vukonichm@michigan.gov is the Chief Architect.
Pointe West Condos - The units will be condominiumized so ICLB doesn't have to be a landlord or contract with that type of property management. They didn't get any special incentives from the city so you wouldn't find anything about it. I don't know the funding model, but affordable can be mean simply 60% AMI so that may not be a difficult target for them to hit. I'm interested to see how it works as middle-housing infill. We haven't really seen this type of product in Lansing.
The OPRA revocation at Prudden is interesting, for some reason I thought it was originally for the office project and it was pulled to resubmit for the upcoming residential rehab. Now I have no clue what they're doing.