I feel like it has to be something bigger than that. If it was the bar and grill, we'd have probably heard them offering to buy it when the City Market recently put out there that they are on a month-to-month lease, basically.
Looks like another relatively slow week in development news as it relates to the public side of things.
July 12 Board of Zoning Appeals
The Unity Spiritual Center church at Holmes (St.) and Prospect two blocks south of Sparrow is requesting a yard variance for an 864 square feet expansion they want to add to the west of the building on what is currently vacant land they use for parking. The variance is needed because the land is zoned residential and would usually require a 20-foot front yard setback, and since the whole structure is basically non-compliant there is no way this could work with the size of the site.
The Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic church down on Cedar between Holmes (Rd.) and Cavanaugh is also requesting a variance to expand their parking lot. Specifically, they purchased a vacant residential lot at the corner of their block at the southwest corner of Hunter and Rosemont back in 2015, and they want to use part of the lot to redo their existing parking lot which would add 28 spaces to the north end of the property for the church and school.
July 9 City Council Meeting
Only development-related things for this meeting appear to be the public hearings for the amended and restated Red Cedar Renaissance development agreement, sale of the old BWL substation at 1609 North Larch for re-use as office space, the proposed rezoning of 1030 & 1048 Pierpont (former "Homeless Hotel") to allow its reused as a storage and retail facility for U-Haul, and then the repeal of the ordinance requiring the City Market to exist at its current site.
Finally, it appears the city will set some additional rules for the Corridor Facade Grant program. This is the program that awards grants for facade restorations outside the downtown area. There are three different types of grants, one for substantial things like full reconstructions, one for less substantial things like repainting, signange, lighting, etc. and then one for designs/renderings for planned facade redos.
Since it doesn't look like they city - once again - hasn't added their planning & development committee agendas for this month or the planning board agenda, I can't say if there is anything major hitting the board or council this month. I'll have to get on the city for this, again. lol
Sorry, just got back on so not to back up to far, but I thought when the renderings of the traffic circle were originally released 7-8 years ago or so, that they included a fountain as part of the plan.
Why would the Mayor feel he has to keep plans for City Market secret? They often seem eager to announce plans for projects that never get off paper, what is different about this situation? Expanded parkland sounds right to me perhaps with concessions like a beer garden or coffee/ice cream stand.
LANSING — About 20 protesters gathered outside Lansing City Hall Monday evening, calling on officials to save the City Market.
The future of the market is up in the air.
City Council voted in May to slash Lansing's annual subsidy to the market from $80,000 to $40,000. The reduced subsidy will allow the market to stay open through the summer, its busiest season.
Planning Board's agenda has been put up and for discussion is approving a ballot measure to sell the market and land. What I found interesting was that they also call for rezoning it from residential (what all parkland is zoned) to the downtown zoning, since G-1 basically allows you to do anything under the sun, whereas A-Residential pretty much confines you (by right, anyway) to a single family home and some conditional uses.
Some other interesting little nuggets in the agenda is that City Market Drive is not actually a public street, which I didn't know. It's apparently a private city-owned street, so some kind of easement would have to be given to redevelop the site (buildable parcels are required to have access to a public right-of-way). Also, the potential sale only includes the building and its patio (while the full parcel includes all public/park space up to Shiawassee Street bridge), and would require a formal lot-splitting.
I am sorry to see that some people will lose their jobs, but this whole market and its location was a bad idea from the start. Whatever the city does with that space it needs to add value and actually be used by people.
I saw people working on the seating areas along Cedar by the river trail and 496. This is an example of what I mean about spending money on something that no one ever uses. The benches and bricked areas must have cost thousands just to have the "idea" of someone sitting there. That money could have been better spent putting the benches on the other side next to the river trail where they would be used, and plant trees and flowers on the Cedar side. So it was a nice "idea" to have a city market but that was money poorly spent on something that no one uses.
LANSING — A four-building, $52 million apartment complex at the site of a former hotel near the intersection of Dunckel and Collins roads could start construction later this year.
The complex is designed meet the housing needs of new medical professionals who will come to Lansing for jobs at McLaren Greater Lansing's new hospital. The hospital announced in December plans to consolidate operations at its two south Lansing facilities into one $450 million facility near Michigan State University.
“This will be one of the first few incidental positives that comes out of the McLaren announcement," Lansing Mayor Andy Schor said.
The proposed housing development will have four buildings holding 286 market-rate units. The project will include garage parking, an outdoor pool, courtyards, grilling stations, an enclosed outdoor dog park, a clubhouse and a leasing center.
Kind of wish the Brownfield Authority posted packets so we could see this, but we'll see it whenever it hits the planning board and/or city council. Sounds like the new hospital really brought this from a stale proposal to fruition.
Also:
The developer has also pledged $500,000 for public gateway improvements at the intersection of Dunckel and Collins Roads. What those improvements will look like hasn't been decided, Schor said, but they will help better welcome people to Lansing.
"This is an entrance to the city," he said. "It’s an area we went to showcase as a positive for Lansing.”
If approved, the project will start this fall and wrap by mid 2020.
This corner of Lansing always seemed like a good place for development, it is so great to see the hospital have an impact before it is built. I think there where plans published a while ago with a "Northern Lodge" style design, is this the same developer or an all-new plan?
There's been one or two proposals for this site. I remember hood posting some site plans a year back for a development that was more mixed-use (with underground parking), as they were requesting some rezoning of the land. This seems to be a new proposal; it also appears the rezoning must have never been approved as it's only zoned for residential. In fact, with the DM-1 zoning - lowest density multi-unit district - there is no way they can put 286 units on the largest parcel as it's considerably over the density allowed in this zoning if even every apartment was planned as a studio apartment. So they will either need seek a variance, rezone the site, or develop this as a "Planned Residential Develop" overlay to allow for more density.
And looking at the developer's website, I already have a bit of concern. They look like they do generic suburban apartment complexes. I would urge the city to demand mixed usage at this site. This is literally squeezed between a huge post office to the south, MSU's experimental farms to the east and the freeway to the west. There is literally nothing anyone could safely walk to as it concerns commercial/retail developments. There really needs to be direction that as they begin to develop this slice of Lansing along Collins Road that they zone some of the land for neighborhood retail if they are going to have all of these new residents and workers over this way.
Comments
I feel like it has to be something bigger than that. If it was the bar and grill, we'd have probably heard them offering to buy it when the City Market recently put out there that they are on a month-to-month lease, basically.
Looks like another relatively slow week in development news as it relates to the public side of things.
July 12 Board of Zoning Appeals
The Unity Spiritual Center church at Holmes (St.) and Prospect two blocks south of Sparrow is requesting a yard variance for an 864 square feet expansion they want to add to the west of the building on what is currently vacant land they use for parking. The variance is needed because the land is zoned residential and would usually require a 20-foot front yard setback, and since the whole structure is basically non-compliant there is no way this could work with the size of the site.
The Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic church down on Cedar between Holmes (Rd.) and Cavanaugh is also requesting a variance to expand their parking lot. Specifically, they purchased a vacant residential lot at the corner of their block at the southwest corner of Hunter and Rosemont back in 2015, and they want to use part of the lot to redo their existing parking lot which would add 28 spaces to the north end of the property for the church and school.
July 9 City Council Meeting
Only development-related things for this meeting appear to be the public hearings for the amended and restated Red Cedar Renaissance development agreement, sale of the old BWL substation at 1609 North Larch for re-use as office space, the proposed rezoning of 1030 & 1048 Pierpont (former "Homeless Hotel") to allow its reused as a storage and retail facility for U-Haul, and then the repeal of the ordinance requiring the City Market to exist at its current site.
Finally, it appears the city will set some additional rules for the Corridor Facade Grant program. This is the program that awards grants for facade restorations outside the downtown area. There are three different types of grants, one for substantial things like full reconstructions, one for less substantial things like repainting, signange, lighting, etc. and then one for designs/renderings for planned facade redos.
Since it doesn't look like they city - once again - hasn't added their planning & development committee agendas for this month or the planning board agenda, I can't say if there is anything major hitting the board or council this month. I'll have to get on the city for this, again. lol
Sorry, just got back on so not to back up to far, but I thought when the renderings of the traffic circle were originally released 7-8 years ago or so, that they included a fountain as part of the plan.
Why would the Mayor feel he has to keep plans for City Market secret? They often seem eager to announce plans for projects that never get off paper, what is different about this situation? Expanded parkland sounds right to me perhaps with concessions like a beer garden or coffee/ice cream stand.
This is heating up pretty quickly. There was a protest today to save the city market.
Planning Board's agenda has been put up and for discussion is approving a ballot measure to sell the market and land. What I found interesting was that they also call for rezoning it from residential (what all parkland is zoned) to the downtown zoning, since G-1 basically allows you to do anything under the sun, whereas A-Residential pretty much confines you (by right, anyway) to a single family home and some conditional uses.
Some other interesting little nuggets in the agenda is that City Market Drive is not actually a public street, which I didn't know. It's apparently a private city-owned street, so some kind of easement would have to be given to redevelop the site (buildable parcels are required to have access to a public right-of-way). Also, the potential sale only includes the building and its patio (while the full parcel includes all public/park space up to Shiawassee Street bridge), and would require a formal lot-splitting.
I am sorry to see that some people will lose their jobs, but this whole market and its location was a bad idea from the start. Whatever the city does with that space it needs to add value and actually be used by people.
I saw people working on the seating areas along Cedar by the river trail and 496. This is an example of what I mean about spending money on something that no one ever uses. The benches and bricked areas must have cost thousands just to have the "idea" of someone sitting there. That money could have been better spent putting the benches on the other side next to the river trail where they would be used, and plant trees and flowers on the Cedar side. So it was a nice "idea" to have a city market but that was money poorly spent on something that no one uses.
Finally.
Florida developer plans $52 million apartment complex at Dunckel and Collins
Kind of wish the Brownfield Authority posted packets so we could see this, but we'll see it whenever it hits the planning board and/or city council. Sounds like the new hospital really brought this from a stale proposal to fruition.
Also:
This corner of Lansing always seemed like a good place for development, it is so great to see the hospital have an impact before it is built. I think there where plans published a while ago with a "Northern Lodge" style design, is this the same developer or an all-new plan?
There's been one or two proposals for this site. I remember hood posting some site plans a year back for a development that was more mixed-use (with underground parking), as they were requesting some rezoning of the land. This seems to be a new proposal; it also appears the rezoning must have never been approved as it's only zoned for residential. In fact, with the DM-1 zoning - lowest density multi-unit district - there is no way they can put 286 units on the largest parcel as it's considerably over the density allowed in this zoning if even every apartment was planned as a studio apartment. So they will either need seek a variance, rezone the site, or develop this as a "Planned Residential Develop" overlay to allow for more density.
And looking at the developer's website, I already have a bit of concern. They look like they do generic suburban apartment complexes. I would urge the city to demand mixed usage at this site. This is literally squeezed between a huge post office to the south, MSU's experimental farms to the east and the freeway to the west. There is literally nothing anyone could safely walk to as it concerns commercial/retail developments. There really needs to be direction that as they begin to develop this slice of Lansing along Collins Road that they zone some of the land for neighborhood retail if they are going to have all of these new residents and workers over this way.