The first thing I noticed on this site was they cut down all the trees. Many of them were healthy and quite old. I am hoping the city develops a plan to make this area more pedestrian friendly. There sould be walkways to Old Town and Downtown perhaps on old rail paths.
@MichMatters The new planning commission packet has a letter from H Inc regarding the OPRA at 700 May, they said that the OPRA being revoked is the one for the commercial project they had previously proposed and that they will now be seeking a Neighborhood Enterprise Zone incentive.
Due to the excessive tree cutting at the Pointe West Condos and the H Inc. development I think it is imperative that there be a new ordinance to protect trees from being cut down when they don't impact the new building. I don't understand why they even want to clear-cut sites like this. H Inc. didn't pull demo permits so I think it is shady.
The city needs to make street redesign a real priority with MDOT because of all the development going on around Cedar/Larch/Oakland/Saginaw. If we can't get two-ways at least on-street parking will help slow things down and limit off-street lots to facilitate denser development. The railways are still active so it will be impossible to utilize them for now.
@MichMatters If Gentilozzi follows through with the parking garage over Grand it will have to go through Act 33 review for use of air rights with Planning Commission and Council. I agree with most of you that it is bad planning practice and will inhibit future development on the low hanging fruit that is Grand Ave. I'd like more details about why they aren't partnering with Davenport (owns the three vacant lots at the southeast corner of the block) to locate the parking garage completely on that block.
I totally agree on the tree cutting, something should be done. I'd also love to see the city recommit itself to having a tree every X feet/or for every lot in the right of way.
The Cedar/Larch and Saginaw/Oakland corridors do need attention whether being converted to two way or not. As I've paid more attention I've realized that Saginaw wouldn't be terribly hard to convert into a 5 lane road, which I think is appropriate, then Oakland would become a 2 or 3 lane minor arterial (I'd like to see part of it changed to Grand River Ave to make that name continuous). Cedar/Larch is tougher because neither could become 5 lanes and I'm not sure two 3 lane roads would be considered adequate. Some sort of asymmetrical lane configuration may work.
I like the idea of partnering with Davenport and sharing parking, but he could just as well add 2-3 floors of additional parking to the existing footprint west of Grand and likely get to the desired number of spaces. The Davenport option would potentially allow him to keep the larger rooftop park though.
The agenda for Monday's council meeting has been posted and I don't see anything regarding the Gentilozzi projects or anything else much of note besides one item: Apparently the city is selling its lot on Grand Ave at Lenawee to the Boji's for $760k. Now I'm wondering if the Boji's are the ones working with CATA to building their offices here or are the plans for this block changing again?
Yeah, I just didn't figure they'd be the ones involved in a relatively small scale mixed use project as they've stood on the sidelines despite seemingly having the land and resources to do things over the years. I guess the dismal office market may be getting to them. But hey, if this means we have another developer in the new construction game locally then I guess I can't complain.
BTW, regarding you're idea about the Masonic Temple city hall, it could certainly make for a cool city hall building with the right addition/facade treatment on its south face, I'm pretty sure it's not big enough to meet all the city's needs anyway in which case they'd be locked in to buying the lot next door for the addition, and hopefully a plaza at the corner. I still don't think it can be done right for $40 million and I'm still worried it'll be in the LSJ building or even the worse, the Victor Building that I heard rumors about awhile ago. Sounds like we'll hear more soon.
I missed the part in the Boji's purchase agreement that the sale is actually tied to something being built there, I skimmed for something about that and apparently missed it.
I'm just not sure GM cares or that the city has any sort of privileged communication with them. I'd love to see GM part with or develop their lot near Cooley Gardens along with the old Oldsmobile HQ, I'd like them to sell off land in between or at least west of MLK, put their fence on MLK behind the landscaping they did... I could list more. GM has not been a good corporate citizen recently besides simply existing here and supplying jobs.
Yesterday I noticed a large new mural being painted on the western wall of one of the new apartment buildings in REOtown on S Washington. I did not get a real good look at it while driving but it looked really nice with robins and the Capitol Building depicted. The mural will take attention away from the mediocre architecture of that development!
I really don't know how to feel about these projects across from the CATA station, there's so much up in the air. With questions about homeless services, the prospect of an LHC managed building, unknown size of the CATA offices/number of apartments there and probably most important: the potentially bad site layout, I'm very much in wait and see mode before I cheer this one on. It could end up being fairly nice, or not so much.
Comments
https://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/news/local/2023/08/20/affordable-housing-downtown-lansing-riverview-220-housing-commission/70619990007/
The city needs to make street redesign a real priority with MDOT because of all the development going on around Cedar/Larch/Oakland/Saginaw. If we can't get two-ways at least on-street parking will help slow things down and limit off-street lots to facilitate denser development. The railways are still active so it will be impossible to utilize them for now.
@MichMatters If Gentilozzi follows through with the parking garage over Grand it will have to go through Act 33 review for use of air rights with Planning Commission and Council. I agree with most of you that it is bad planning practice and will inhibit future development on the low hanging fruit that is Grand Ave. I'd like more details about why they aren't partnering with Davenport (owns the three vacant lots at the southeast corner of the block) to locate the parking garage completely on that block.
The Cedar/Larch and Saginaw/Oakland corridors do need attention whether being converted to two way or not. As I've paid more attention I've realized that Saginaw wouldn't be terribly hard to convert into a 5 lane road, which I think is appropriate, then Oakland would become a 2 or 3 lane minor arterial (I'd like to see part of it changed to Grand River Ave to make that name continuous). Cedar/Larch is tougher because neither could become 5 lanes and I'm not sure two 3 lane roads would be considered adequate. Some sort of asymmetrical lane configuration may work.
I like the idea of partnering with Davenport and sharing parking, but he could just as well add 2-3 floors of additional parking to the existing footprint west of Grand and likely get to the desired number of spaces. The Davenport option would potentially allow him to keep the larger rooftop park though.
https://content.civicplus.com/api/assets/3af1b227-1c09-4529-b472-e68db8907de8?cache=1800
BTW, regarding you're idea about the Masonic Temple city hall, it could certainly make for a cool city hall building with the right addition/facade treatment on its south face, I'm pretty sure it's not big enough to meet all the city's needs anyway in which case they'd be locked in to buying the lot next door for the addition, and hopefully a plaza at the corner. I still don't think it can be done right for $40 million and I'm still worried it'll be in the LSJ building or even the worse, the Victor Building that I heard rumors about awhile ago. Sounds like we'll hear more soon.
I'm just not sure GM cares or that the city has any sort of privileged communication with them. I'd love to see GM part with or develop their lot near Cooley Gardens along with the old Oldsmobile HQ, I'd like them to sell off land in between or at least west of MLK, put their fence on MLK behind the landscaping they did... I could list more. GM has not been a good corporate citizen recently besides simply existing here and supplying jobs.