I am wondering if the Mayor wants these proposed plans resubmitted or wants newly revised plans. I like parts of each plan and really do not like others. I had not seen the St. Joesph Street drawings before. I like the location and the interesting design, the huge letters are kind of strange but interesting. I do not like the Boji or Urban Systems plan for the current City Hall. I am hoping he wants them to revisit their plans.
gbd - the article indicates that Beitler Real Estate Services is still going to do the redevelopment of the current city hall building, but that they've reopened proposals for the new city hall building.
I can see why the city went with Beitler for renovating the old city hall - they offered the best plan to update the site while preserving its distinctive mid-century architecture. Boji's plans for the current and future city hall were the worst, IMO... totally generic and cheap looking. I'm OK with the proposals from Karp and Urban Design - they both have nice, modern looking design elements, although the Karp proposal for the new city hall seems to be a rather small building.
I noticed a lot of talk about linking REO Town to downtown in the articles about the redevelopment of City Hall. While that sounds great in theory, with the freeway, the river and the new substation, there's a lot dead/inactive space between the two neighborhoods. How do you fix that, short of something bold and expensive, like burying or removing 496?
There's a lot to be gained from linking to REO Town to downtown, but the obstacles to doing that seem huge to me. Do we have politicians and developers up to the challenge?
Oh, thanks, I see that now and I agree they have the best plan for the old City Hall.
The gap between downtown and REOtown is real, but I think there are a few ways it could be closed. One would be to build in the airspace over 496, but with all the open land around to develop it would unlikely. I could see the walkways leading to REOtown being a greenway from downtown blocking views of 496 with trees and green fences.
In my experience it's tough to get Americans to walk over freeways. It really seems to kill pedestrian activity.
496 was a big mistake. They should've just built 96 farther north in the Jolly/Holmes area and used MLK to route traffic in and out of downtown. Of course now we're stuck with what we have. Hopefully somebody can figure it out.
To be clear, the only thing new, here, is that the mayor is asking them to flesh out plans for a new city hall. All original plans included at least some kind of plan for city hall, but Virg had that as an after-thought in the RFP. The only thing different here is that Andy is calling on them to have a very defined plan for the new city hall, whereas Virg's RFP was very heavily weighed simply toward redeveloping the existing city hall and finding a permanent location for the city government later.
Anyway, this still has to get beyond city council (6 or 8 votes), so nothing has fundamentally changed about the equation, here; in fact, the election last year made it less likely than it already was (Jeremy Garza is with the Hussein/Washington/Wood wing of the council). I'm still not in favor of this.
BTW, someone can start a new thread on the proposal if they'd like.
It's true that 496 was a big mistake, dividing the city and destroying something like 900 buildings. Lansing was proud of its new modern expressway back then so I guess they built the bridges so you could see it.
My idea about a greenway would be a shaded wide sidewalk/linear park from Hillsdale over to the new substation walkways. Washington Ave is very wide there and has unused traffic lanes on both sides of the 496 bridge that could be filled with planters and small trees. On the bridge, a green fence of evergreens shrubs or flowering vines that weave through fencing could be placed along the sidewalk to totally block the view of 496. A lot more trees and hedges could be planted along the ground level areas of the highway right of ways, especially at the corners. Right now it is noisy cold windy and kind of vertigo-inducing to walk across that bridge. Any sort of buffering of the view the weather and the noise would really help.
Thanks everyone for indulging my brainstorms on the site, I have thought about what I would build in Lansing if I was in charge since I was a kid, so it is fun for me to share these ideas even they are just dreaming and perhaps tiresome!
BTW - I don't think I've ever seen any pictures of main street before its demolition. Could someone post a few pics, esp. from the stretch between MLK and cedar/larch? I'd also be interested in learning more about the history of that area, and why the city decided to plow 496 through it.
The self-service and automatic car wash behind Burger King at 728 North Cedar is coming down (this is just near the corner with Saginaw). It's only been there since 2002, but the car wash up the street seems to have doomed it. Hopefully, something is planned for the site. This block is getting sparse. A big problem is MDOT owning the streets around these "islands." You can't really develop too much walkable stuff, here, given the one-way and speed of the streets. It's why the old Bonnie's Place remains empty and why the corner at Larch and Saginaw remains empty and the same with Larch and Oakland.
That said, office space seems to do just fine over here. The building at 741 North Cedar across the street just underwent and extensive facade renovation. The taxable value has gone up every year on the building.
Anyway, some local developers (who own quite a bit of small downtown properties including at Larch and Saginaw) based out of 316 East Michigan own the property. Like most the rest of the properties in the immediate area, it's zoned H-Light Industrial. It sits on a bit over half-an-acre and is valued at around $103,000.
I do not have any pictures, my Dad had a Sunoco station on the corner of Main Street and Logan. On Main Street, there was a couple of churches small corner stores and lots of small bungalow type houses very old and very used, on down to fine big houses near Washington Ave. The location of this neighborhood between GM and Downtown and the fact that it was mainly populated by African Americans who had no power to stop it, there was the point of least resistance. There were also several thousand more people working at Olds, REO and Downtown. The old street grid was maxed out it's true, and I do not know where else they could have put it, but it seems like there may have been more than just a bit of racism involved these decisions. In a former post here you can find a link to the Lansing Library that has a collection of photos taken of almost every house in Lansing in the early 60's look there to find lots of photos of that area.
Comments
I am wondering if the Mayor wants these proposed plans resubmitted or wants newly revised plans. I like parts of each plan and really do not like others. I had not seen the St. Joesph Street drawings before. I like the location and the interesting design, the huge letters are kind of strange but interesting. I do not like the Boji or Urban Systems plan for the current City Hall. I am hoping he wants them to revisit their plans.
gbd - the article indicates that Beitler Real Estate Services is still going to do the redevelopment of the current city hall building, but that they've reopened proposals for the new city hall building.
I can see why the city went with Beitler for renovating the old city hall - they offered the best plan to update the site while preserving its distinctive mid-century architecture. Boji's plans for the current and future city hall were the worst, IMO... totally generic and cheap looking. I'm OK with the proposals from Karp and Urban Design - they both have nice, modern looking design elements, although the Karp proposal for the new city hall seems to be a rather small building.
I noticed a lot of talk about linking REO Town to downtown in the articles about the redevelopment of City Hall. While that sounds great in theory, with the freeway, the river and the new substation, there's a lot dead/inactive space between the two neighborhoods. How do you fix that, short of something bold and expensive, like burying or removing 496?
There's a lot to be gained from linking to REO Town to downtown, but the obstacles to doing that seem huge to me. Do we have politicians and developers up to the challenge?
Oh, thanks, I see that now and I agree they have the best plan for the old City Hall.
The gap between downtown and REOtown is real, but I think there are a few ways it could be closed. One would be to build in the airspace over 496, but with all the open land around to develop it would unlikely. I could see the walkways leading to REOtown being a greenway from downtown blocking views of 496 with trees and green fences.
In my experience it's tough to get Americans to walk over freeways. It really seems to kill pedestrian activity.
496 was a big mistake. They should've just built 96 farther north in the Jolly/Holmes area and used MLK to route traffic in and out of downtown. Of course now we're stuck with what we have. Hopefully somebody can figure it out.
To be clear, the only thing new, here, is that the mayor is asking them to flesh out plans for a new city hall. All original plans included at least some kind of plan for city hall, but Virg had that as an after-thought in the RFP. The only thing different here is that Andy is calling on them to have a very defined plan for the new city hall, whereas Virg's RFP was very heavily weighed simply toward redeveloping the existing city hall and finding a permanent location for the city government later.
Anyway, this still has to get beyond city council (6 or 8 votes), so nothing has fundamentally changed about the equation, here; in fact, the election last year made it less likely than it already was (Jeremy Garza is with the Hussein/Washington/Wood wing of the council). I'm still not in favor of this.
BTW, someone can start a new thread on the proposal if they'd like.
It's true that 496 was a big mistake, dividing the city and destroying something like 900 buildings. Lansing was proud of its new modern expressway back then so I guess they built the bridges so you could see it.
My idea about a greenway would be a shaded wide sidewalk/linear park from Hillsdale over to the new substation walkways. Washington Ave is very wide there and has unused traffic lanes on both sides of the 496 bridge that could be filled with planters and small trees. On the bridge, a green fence of evergreens shrubs or flowering vines that weave through fencing could be placed along the sidewalk to totally block the view of 496. A lot more trees and hedges could be planted along the ground level areas of the highway right of ways, especially at the corners. Right now it is noisy cold windy and kind of vertigo-inducing to walk across that bridge. Any sort of buffering of the view the weather and the noise would really help.
Thanks everyone for indulging my brainstorms on the site, I have thought about what I would build in Lansing if I was in charge since I was a kid, so it is fun for me to share these ideas even they are just dreaming and perhaps tiresome!
a greenway would be perfect!
BTW - I don't think I've ever seen any pictures of main street before its demolition. Could someone post a few pics, esp. from the stretch between MLK and cedar/larch? I'd also be interested in learning more about the history of that area, and why the city decided to plow 496 through it.
The self-service and automatic car wash behind Burger King at 728 North Cedar is coming down (this is just near the corner with Saginaw). It's only been there since 2002, but the car wash up the street seems to have doomed it. Hopefully, something is planned for the site. This block is getting sparse. A big problem is MDOT owning the streets around these "islands." You can't really develop too much walkable stuff, here, given the one-way and speed of the streets. It's why the old Bonnie's Place remains empty and why the corner at Larch and Saginaw remains empty and the same with Larch and Oakland.
https://accessmygov.com/ASSG_Sketch/GetAttachment?id=H7VWp81dRTs=&uid=384
That said, office space seems to do just fine over here. The building at 741 North Cedar across the street just underwent and extensive facade renovation. The taxable value has gone up every year on the building.
Anyway, some local developers (who own quite a bit of small downtown properties including at Larch and Saginaw) based out of 316 East Michigan own the property. Like most the rest of the properties in the immediate area, it's zoned H-Light Industrial. It sits on a bit over half-an-acre and is valued at around $103,000.
I do not have any pictures, my Dad had a Sunoco station on the corner of Main Street and Logan. On Main Street, there was a couple of churches small corner stores and lots of small bungalow type houses very old and very used, on down to fine big houses near Washington Ave. The location of this neighborhood between GM and Downtown and the fact that it was mainly populated by African Americans who had no power to stop it, there was the point of least resistance. There were also several thousand more people working at Olds, REO and Downtown. The old street grid was maxed out it's true, and I do not know where else they could have put it, but it seems like there may have been more than just a bit of racism involved these decisions. In a former post here you can find a link to the Lansing Library that has a collection of photos taken of almost every house in Lansing in the early 60's look there to find lots of photos of that area.