A vote on the special land use permit for 735 East Hazel "The Wing."
A vote on a special assessment for all properties in the Red Cedar floodplain for the creation of an updated floodplain map. I assume this is why the floodplain layer was recently removed from the city's zoning map tool. The city's responsibility is $181,500, so that amount will be divided between all properties in the floodplain based on their square footage.
A vote on the mayor's reorganization of city departments which includes moving code compliance from the fire department to the new Economic Development & Planning Department, and moving Neighborhoods to the newly created Neighborhoods & Civic Engagement Department. The mayor apparently thought Neighborhoods - which does a lot of work with federal grants and such for housing programs - was getting short-shrift in the planning department, so he's given them their own department. Code compliance apparently didn't have enough human resources with the busy fire department, so it's transfered to the planning department where it will be a better fit for the focus of that department.
The biggie is something I brought up the other day that I'd heard from someone in the know. Gillespie Group is requesting the rezoning of a number of parcels at and near the southeast corner of Michigan and Larch from Industrial to General Business, with the exception of a few. I'm surprised by the scope of this, because it's the entire block north of Barnard, west of the railroad tracks, south of Michigan and east of Larch. Apparently, the extempt properties are 628 E. Michigan (the medical marijuana dispensary and loft building furthest east), the corner lot at Michigan and Larch which is already zoned General Business, 119 South Larch (Liskeys) except their alley which is to be vacated and rezoned, and 629 Barnard and the lot to the east. It appears the exempted properties are those with other owners who perhaps didn't want to be a part of this, but that's only Liskeys, the marijuana dispensary and a home owner on Barnard.
Anyway, this is for a mixed-use commercial and residential development on 3.6 acres, so this could be significant. Will love how to see renderings and site plans. G-1 Business is the highest-density zoning classification, and allows for the most urban development.
That is very interesting information, thank you. It is a large area, I guess we can look forward to that corner looking very colorful soon. Barnard looks to have a couple of 19th-century houses but this is a very isolated street, I'm sure no one will be fighting to save a couple of the nicer antique houses, the rest of the area is mainly blacktop. There is a nice hill that would offer some great views from apartments built up there.
It would be amazing to see all of these different projects get underway this year. Seems like there would be hundreds of construction workers with jobs in Lansing if all the planned projects get started soon, adding to the workers at sites already under construction.
Wow! 3.6 acres in the middle of a city is a huge chunk of land! There is really a ton of potential here. I'm excited to see what gets proposed. I do think the brick house at the end of Barnard looks nice, and it would be cool if they could keep it and incorporate it in to the development. The mixed architecture would make the development look really neat, but I'm not hopeful and the fact it's at a dead end won't help.
I was kind of surprised to find that the north side of the street was so empty, but maybe that's been by design as leases ended and such. At least one of the homes the land bank owns. My understanding from reading the council agenda is that Barnard will largely be used as an outlet for a driveway, I imagine to keep a lot of curb cuts from the Michigan Avenue frontage.
I've actually never been up the street, but have always thought it was a cool little area tucked away, and since it's on a hill, they have awesome views of downtown. I know the house right on the corner facing Larch has been occupied forever; I've always seen people out on the porch. I noticed just the other week that one of the large trees was cut down either on that lot or at Liskeys and was wondering if it had something to do with this or not.
What I'm really interested in is just how much larger/taller this will be than the original concept, which was just for the corner lot at Larch and Michigan? It'd being a corner site, I would think you could put something moderately tall there, certainly taller than Stadium District, so I always thought the original concept for the corner didn't do it any justice. Maybe this means something more substantial and a better design.
I have never been up there, I was looking at googlemaps. The June of 2011 must have had really nice weather. There are many streets including Barnard that still have the 2011 googlemaps pictures and they are always so pretty that they make a not so great neighborhood look good!
Quite a different scene than out my window today. I went for a winter walk to Moores Park, they still have been keeping the river very low. The low water gives the river a much more natural appearance[in the snow anyway] with sandbars and sloped banks and the water running very clear and fast. One might think you were up north, lots of different water birds including six huge white swans in the open water by the park.
3.6 acres is just so much land that I don't think it actually will be that tall. They just don't have to build tall when they can build outwards. I expect that the building will be built similar to Stadium District, with a wide building fronting Michigan Ave and Larch, then surface parking in the back. I hope for two floors of parking with more floors of residential/office above but I'm trying to set reasonable expectations.
I expect it to be taller than what was originally proposed at the site, because I expect them to add a bit more commercial space and a bit more resdiential. I wasn't talking a high-rise, but something taller than the three stories they originally proposed at the site. Also, with a road going to go through the site, it's going to be split up into at least two parcels, probably more.
Speaking of parking, I'd really hope the city this time would work with the gillespies to put up two floors of parking out back for both residents and downtown visitors. They aren't going to get too many chances to have a site like this to do that on. They failed doing that at Stadium District, which originally included a two-level parking garage.
What are the odds that if the entire block is developed that utilities will get buried? Being out in the Sacramento area for so long now, one thing that always strikes me when I go back to Lansing is how many utility poles and overhead wires there are in the city core. Out here almost everything is buried. You just don't see a lot of overhead lines like that until you start to get further out.
Since there aren't any overhead wires on the Michigan frontage, we'd be talking about the Larch frontage. I can really see it going either way. On one hand, the Larch frontage will be broken up since Liskey's is staying, so maybe they won't bury them. On the other hand, there is no way Gillespie would allow for a pole to block someone's window view. If parking it push to the back I could see them burying the utilities to Liskey's. That's like two poles; the question becomes if anyone wants to pay to tear up the Michigan to get the wires across the street.
As for the alley, since they are likely to clear the whole site, I imagine those for sure will end up buried.
It's great to see that Gillespie is looking at a larger redevelopment for that corner. One thing I'd like to see is for him to build a street from Michigan to Barnard. If he owns the dispensary building he could just extend Pere Marquette across Michigan to tie the development in better with the surrounding area. The site really seems too large to not do something like that.
As for uses, there will obviously be apartments and retail but I'm sort of expecting a hotel, most likely at the corner of Larch & Michigan. I wouldn't want to guess how big it could be but I would be equally unsurprised whether it were a 4 floor express hotel or a 12+ floor full service hotel.
This development could be great and as always I'm anxious to see the plans. Something about this has me feeling that it could move relatively quick.
Comments
Some stuff in the council agenda for next week:
A vote on the special land use permit for 735 East Hazel "The Wing."
A vote on a special assessment for all properties in the Red Cedar floodplain for the creation of an updated floodplain map. I assume this is why the floodplain layer was recently removed from the city's zoning map tool. The city's responsibility is $181,500, so that amount will be divided between all properties in the floodplain based on their square footage.
A vote on the mayor's reorganization of city departments which includes moving code compliance from the fire department to the new Economic Development & Planning Department, and moving Neighborhoods to the newly created Neighborhoods & Civic Engagement Department. The mayor apparently thought Neighborhoods - which does a lot of work with federal grants and such for housing programs - was getting short-shrift in the planning department, so he's given them their own department. Code compliance apparently didn't have enough human resources with the busy fire department, so it's transfered to the planning department where it will be a better fit for the focus of that department.
The biggie is something I brought up the other day that I'd heard from someone in the know. Gillespie Group is requesting the rezoning of a number of parcels at and near the southeast corner of Michigan and Larch from Industrial to General Business, with the exception of a few. I'm surprised by the scope of this, because it's the entire block north of Barnard, west of the railroad tracks, south of Michigan and east of Larch. Apparently, the extempt properties are 628 E. Michigan (the medical marijuana dispensary and loft building furthest east), the corner lot at Michigan and Larch which is already zoned General Business, 119 South Larch (Liskeys) except their alley which is to be vacated and rezoned, and 629 Barnard and the lot to the east. It appears the exempted properties are those with other owners who perhaps didn't want to be a part of this, but that's only Liskeys, the marijuana dispensary and a home owner on Barnard.
Anyway, this is for a mixed-use commercial and residential development on 3.6 acres, so this could be significant. Will love how to see renderings and site plans. G-1 Business is the highest-density zoning classification, and allows for the most urban development.
That is very interesting information, thank you. It is a large area, I guess we can look forward to that corner looking very colorful soon. Barnard looks to have a couple of 19th-century houses but this is a very isolated street, I'm sure no one will be fighting to save a couple of the nicer antique houses, the rest of the area is mainly blacktop. There is a nice hill that would offer some great views from apartments built up there.
It would be amazing to see all of these different projects get underway this year. Seems like there would be hundreds of construction workers with jobs in Lansing if all the planned projects get started soon, adding to the workers at sites already under construction.
Wow! 3.6 acres in the middle of a city is a huge chunk of land! There is really a ton of potential here. I'm excited to see what gets proposed. I do think the brick house at the end of Barnard looks nice, and it would be cool if they could keep it and incorporate it in to the development. The mixed architecture would make the development look really neat, but I'm not hopeful and the fact it's at a dead end won't help.
I was kind of surprised to find that the north side of the street was so empty, but maybe that's been by design as leases ended and such. At least one of the homes the land bank owns. My understanding from reading the council agenda is that Barnard will largely be used as an outlet for a driveway, I imagine to keep a lot of curb cuts from the Michigan Avenue frontage.
I've actually never been up the street, but have always thought it was a cool little area tucked away, and since it's on a hill, they have awesome views of downtown. I know the house right on the corner facing Larch has been occupied forever; I've always seen people out on the porch. I noticed just the other week that one of the large trees was cut down either on that lot or at Liskeys and was wondering if it had something to do with this or not.
What I'm really interested in is just how much larger/taller this will be than the original concept, which was just for the corner lot at Larch and Michigan? It'd being a corner site, I would think you could put something moderately tall there, certainly taller than Stadium District, so I always thought the original concept for the corner didn't do it any justice. Maybe this means something more substantial and a better design.
I have never been up there, I was looking at googlemaps. The June of 2011 must have had really nice weather. There are many streets including Barnard that still have the 2011 googlemaps pictures and they are always so pretty that they make a not so great neighborhood look good!
Quite a different scene than out my window today. I went for a winter walk to Moores Park, they still have been keeping the river very low. The low water gives the river a much more natural appearance[in the snow anyway] with sandbars and sloped banks and the water running very clear and fast. One might think you were up north, lots of different water birds including six huge white swans in the open water by the park.
Yeah I only saw Barnard through using Streetview.
3.6 acres is just so much land that I don't think it actually will be that tall. They just don't have to build tall when they can build outwards. I expect that the building will be built similar to Stadium District, with a wide building fronting Michigan Ave and Larch, then surface parking in the back. I hope for two floors of parking with more floors of residential/office above but I'm trying to set reasonable expectations.
I expect it to be taller than what was originally proposed at the site, because I expect them to add a bit more commercial space and a bit more resdiential. I wasn't talking a high-rise, but something taller than the three stories they originally proposed at the site. Also, with a road going to go through the site, it's going to be split up into at least two parcels, probably more.
Speaking of parking, I'd really hope the city this time would work with the gillespies to put up two floors of parking out back for both residents and downtown visitors. They aren't going to get too many chances to have a site like this to do that on. They failed doing that at Stadium District, which originally included a two-level parking garage.
What are the odds that if the entire block is developed that utilities will get buried? Being out in the Sacramento area for so long now, one thing that always strikes me when I go back to Lansing is how many utility poles and overhead wires there are in the city core. Out here almost everything is buried. You just don't see a lot of overhead lines like that until you start to get further out.
Since there aren't any overhead wires on the Michigan frontage, we'd be talking about the Larch frontage. I can really see it going either way. On one hand, the Larch frontage will be broken up since Liskey's is staying, so maybe they won't bury them. On the other hand, there is no way Gillespie would allow for a pole to block someone's window view. If parking it push to the back I could see them burying the utilities to Liskey's. That's like two poles; the question becomes if anyone wants to pay to tear up the Michigan to get the wires across the street.
As for the alley, since they are likely to clear the whole site, I imagine those for sure will end up buried.
It's great to see that Gillespie is looking at a larger redevelopment for that corner. One thing I'd like to see is for him to build a street from Michigan to Barnard. If he owns the dispensary building he could just extend Pere Marquette across Michigan to tie the development in better with the surrounding area. The site really seems too large to not do something like that.
As for uses, there will obviously be apartments and retail but I'm sort of expecting a hotel, most likely at the corner of Larch & Michigan. I wouldn't want to guess how big it could be but I would be equally unsurprised whether it were a 4 floor express hotel or a 12+ floor full service hotel.
This development could be great and as always I'm anxious to see the plans. Something about this has me feeling that it could move relatively quick.