The Eydes, the East Lansing developers who currently own the building, announced a conversion of the school into mixed usage years ago, now. Unfortunately, nothing has come of it, and the old gym was the site of a fire almost exactly a year ago. I guess the good news is that they sat on the Knapps Centre downtown for years, but eventually renovated it.
Huapei, the Asian restaurant across the street, has always surprised me at being a successful business in an area that's not so successful, and they've only gotten more popular. They have pretty good food. Anyway, they've been working on that building forever. lol A driver accidentially veered into the building...back in 2013 to kind of drive home the point of how long they've been reconstructing the place. It's very plain on the inside, too, but they spend a lot of their attention on the actual menu.
Anyway, the most of the zoning along Cedar and Mount Hope around this intersection is a very general commercial zoning (F & F-1), which basically permits all kinds of commercial establishments namely anything in the E-2 Local Shopping zoning (mostly convenience stores, bars, restaurants) and D-1 Professional Office zoning (offices for dentists, doctors, accountants, etc...). F Commercial zoning even allows for medium-density residential use as a conditional use along with whatever commercial use is on the site. So, basically, you could do a lot here under current zoning.
EDIT: Looks at Huapei's facebook page, it seems they completed repairs to the building in late July and reopened on August 2nd. Ha! Good for them.
Thanks for the info, that restaurant always looked closed, I am surprised to hear about it. My older brothers and sister went to French, I think that building could be turned into something really nice. That would help to pull up the surrounding neighborhood. The neighborhood to the south of Mt.Hope is still a nice area, with many different styles of homes, and curving shaded streets. It would be great if those folks could use businesses right around the corner.
Huapei has funky hours, but it is very much open and quite popular. Another big draw is the Fleetwood Diner down the street, which is basically opened 24 hours save for the weekend is my understanding. The wait staff is always really friendly, if even it's sometimes so busy you have to wait quite awhile. There's a taco joint and Mexican grocery kitty corner from Fleetwood. Then you've got Leroy's Bar & Grill and a fairly recently renovated Corey's Lounge right up the street near Baker. Then you've got Lucky's just a block west on Baker.
So, yeah, there is a nice base to work from, here, it's just missing some neighborhood retail. It's certainly not a dead area, or even all that unsafe, just one that looks bad at spots from the main street. Walter French's renovation into apartments on the upper floors would be a game-changer. I've always been kind of surprised given how many bars and restaurants are in this relatively short little stretch of feet that no one's ever tried to give the area a name.
I believe REO Town's "Border" is Cedar St (East) the Grand river(West) Malcolm X (North) and Mt Hope (South). Some people refer to the area south as "SoMo" (SOuth of MOunt Hope)
The border of the commercial association may be Cedar, but no one considers this area an extension of REO Town, though it may be someday. I'm kind of skeptical that Cedar is the actual border (as opposed to the lot line behind the businesses lining Cedar) as their website lists none of the businesses along Cedar.
Technically, the Baker-Donora Neighborhood includes everything north of Mt. Hope and east of Cedar, but that's a residential neighborhood organization. I also imagine that SoMO is probably more centered around Washington just like REO Town is.
So, it's really kind of a no-man's-land as it relates to identity, but it could very have an identity all its own if someone wanted to build one.
I think "The French Neighborhood" could work, from the school name not the language. Most Lansing neighborhoods were known by the schools there in the old days.
I feel like extending REO town further south than Baker and East of the plot lines along Washington is a stretch. Fabulous Acres is an established (if unattractive) community in that area.
I don't mind the southern boundary being Mt. Hope as the commercial areas is contiguous down that way, and it was one of the historical borders of the city for years. Having gone to school in that neighborhood, we always considered the whole area up and down Washington to Mt. Hope as one neighborhood. South of there, not only does the direction of the street change, but the character of it changes to, so Mt. Hope has always been a natural dividing line.
But, this area existed prior to there ever even being a REO Town, and I don't like the idea of dividing it between the "cool" area and the rest of the neighborhood. We should be trying to link and further unify the area, and I hope to see development (with the need of the neighbors in mind) continue down the street to Mt. Hope. Now, going east gets a little blurry.
I think "South Side" could be a good name. People might associate that with South Lansing at first, which is more like the Far South Side, but I think that'd sort out of over time. The businesses near Cedar just south of the river made up South Lansing's original business district, so the name makes sense to me.
I think "North Side" would be good for Old U.S. 27 heading north of Old Town.
I like South Side, that could cover a large area, and is different than "South Lansing". I could be wrong but wasn't the drive in theater on Cedar were the Mega-Mall is now called The North Side Drive In? Back in the day we called all of the area North Lansing which included "Old Town". It was the center of the Latino community back then. I like the North Side it is easy to say, but isn't there already a North Town? Back in Boston there is Southie [South Boston] and the South End two very different places that are pretty far apart. Maybe two neighborhoods with the same sounding name could be confusing.
Comments
The Eydes, the East Lansing developers who currently own the building, announced a conversion of the school into mixed usage years ago, now. Unfortunately, nothing has come of it, and the old gym was the site of a fire almost exactly a year ago. I guess the good news is that they sat on the Knapps Centre downtown for years, but eventually renovated it.
Huapei, the Asian restaurant across the street, has always surprised me at being a successful business in an area that's not so successful, and they've only gotten more popular. They have pretty good food. Anyway, they've been working on that building forever. lol A driver accidentially veered into the building...back in 2013 to kind of drive home the point of how long they've been reconstructing the place. It's very plain on the inside, too, but they spend a lot of their attention on the actual menu.
Anyway, the most of the zoning along Cedar and Mount Hope around this intersection is a very general commercial zoning (F & F-1), which basically permits all kinds of commercial establishments namely anything in the E-2 Local Shopping zoning (mostly convenience stores, bars, restaurants) and D-1 Professional Office zoning (offices for dentists, doctors, accountants, etc...). F Commercial zoning even allows for medium-density residential use as a conditional use along with whatever commercial use is on the site. So, basically, you could do a lot here under current zoning.
EDIT: Looks at Huapei's facebook page, it seems they completed repairs to the building in late July and reopened on August 2nd. Ha! Good for them.
Thanks for the info, that restaurant always looked closed, I am surprised to hear about it. My older brothers and sister went to French, I think that building could be turned into something really nice. That would help to pull up the surrounding neighborhood. The neighborhood to the south of Mt.Hope is still a nice area, with many different styles of homes, and curving shaded streets. It would be great if those folks could use businesses right around the corner.
Huapei has funky hours, but it is very much open and quite popular. Another big draw is the Fleetwood Diner down the street, which is basically opened 24 hours save for the weekend is my understanding. The wait staff is always really friendly, if even it's sometimes so busy you have to wait quite awhile. There's a taco joint and Mexican grocery kitty corner from Fleetwood. Then you've got Leroy's Bar & Grill and a fairly recently renovated Corey's Lounge right up the street near Baker. Then you've got Lucky's just a block west on Baker.
So, yeah, there is a nice base to work from, here, it's just missing some neighborhood retail. It's certainly not a dead area, or even all that unsafe, just one that looks bad at spots from the main street. Walter French's renovation into apartments on the upper floors would be a game-changer. I've always been kind of surprised given how many bars and restaurants are in this relatively short little stretch of feet that no one's ever tried to give the area a name.
I believe REO Town's "Border" is Cedar St (East) the Grand river(West) Malcolm X (North) and Mt Hope (South). Some people refer to the area south as "SoMo" (SOuth of MOunt Hope)
The border of the commercial association may be Cedar, but no one considers this area an extension of REO Town, though it may be someday. I'm kind of skeptical that Cedar is the actual border (as opposed to the lot line behind the businesses lining Cedar) as their website lists none of the businesses along Cedar.
Technically, the Baker-Donora Neighborhood includes everything north of Mt. Hope and east of Cedar, but that's a residential neighborhood organization. I also imagine that SoMO is probably more centered around Washington just like REO Town is.
So, it's really kind of a no-man's-land as it relates to identity, but it could very have an identity all its own if someone wanted to build one.
I think "The French Neighborhood" could work, from the school name not the language. Most Lansing neighborhoods were known by the schools there in the old days.
I feel like extending REO town further south than Baker and East of the plot lines along Washington is a stretch. Fabulous Acres is an established (if unattractive) community in that area.
To me, REO Town starts just below South Street.
I don't mind the southern boundary being Mt. Hope as the commercial areas is contiguous down that way, and it was one of the historical borders of the city for years. Having gone to school in that neighborhood, we always considered the whole area up and down Washington to Mt. Hope as one neighborhood. South of there, not only does the direction of the street change, but the character of it changes to, so Mt. Hope has always been a natural dividing line.
But, this area existed prior to there ever even being a REO Town, and I don't like the idea of dividing it between the "cool" area and the rest of the neighborhood. We should be trying to link and further unify the area, and I hope to see development (with the need of the neighbors in mind) continue down the street to Mt. Hope. Now, going east gets a little blurry.
I think "South Side" could be a good name. People might associate that with South Lansing at first, which is more like the Far South Side, but I think that'd sort out of over time. The businesses near Cedar just south of the river made up South Lansing's original business district, so the name makes sense to me.
I think "North Side" would be good for Old U.S. 27 heading north of Old Town.
I like South Side, that could cover a large area, and is different than "South Lansing". I could be wrong but wasn't the drive in theater on Cedar were the Mega-Mall is now called The North Side Drive In? Back in the day we called all of the area North Lansing which included "Old Town". It was the center of the Latino community back then. I like the North Side it is easy to say, but isn't there already a North Town? Back in Boston there is Southie [South Boston] and the South End two very different places that are pretty far apart. Maybe two neighborhoods with the same sounding name could be confusing.