With all of the rezoning and special use permit procedures completed, the Lansing City Pulse is finally doing a story on the Genesee Street School. And we find out the tentative schedule for the renovation:
New World Flood sold it to a new investment group, Genesee LLC in March, and Markey, one of Genesee’s investors, has laid out an ambitious timeline to have apartments ready to lease by June 2020.
Despite the renovations, Markey said you could not build 36 apartments from the ground up for the price of the repairs. “Good solid housing stock is hard to come by anymore,” he said.
I'm kind of skeptical of the market for these micro-units, but maybe there is one there for them. But really, I'm just glad to see the building get new life.
Speaking of old schools, the OPRA district designation for the old Holmes Street School is making its way through council. The D&P Committee approved a public hearing for the designation for October 14 to have it declared "functionally obsolete" to aid in the renovation of the property. It is proped to have 41 apartment units, and like the old Genesee Street School, will be studios and 1 bedrooms, though this one will have "high-end finishes." The entire property will be re-landscaped. So it sounds a bit more high-end, which will be strange for that neighborhood.
Anyway, they want to start the renovation of the old Holmes Street School in November, and have it wrapped up by June 2021. So, quite an extensive renovation it's sounding like.
It's nice to see this is becoming reality, I really hope he puts some nice windows in there. Regarding the demand, I'd say if the prices for the units are appropriate for their size then he shouldn't have a problem leasing them.
I'm also glad to see the Holmes St project is moving forward but I share your doubts about whether something high-end will really work in that area. That neighborhood is isolated and doesn't have a whole lot going for it right now. I don't see it improving without some big, probably unrealistic, changes.
I drive by the Holmes Street School often, and this neighborhood is not as isolated as you may think. Holmes St. has one of the few underpasses under 496, which leads to Hunter Park and Kalamazoo St. then straight to the Sparrow Complex and E.Michigan Ave. Hazel leads to Pennsylvania Ave. and around the bend on Malcolm X. St. you can get to Aurelius Rd. and Mt. Hope. It's true the are some rough areas and some poorly kept housing but there are also more well-kept houses and the area has some nice tree-lined neighborhood streets which would be greatly improved by repaving. I could see Sparrow and BWL workers and maybe older Eastside residents wanting to stay in their neighborhood as potential tenants in a higher-end building. Seeing these beautiful school buildings fall into disrepair bugs me more than others, I noticed the rear of Otto Jr, High is being covered with graffiti and Walter French is still a mess. I hope to see every old school find a new purpose or they should take them down and sell the land.
Another parking lot. Looks like northern end of the Motor Wheels factory site between Saginaw and Oakland has been paved over. It's weird to me they'd do this unless it also means they are gearing up to build (or at least market) the additional residential component, since there is only one or two tenants lefts in the commercial portion and the apartments have their own parking areas. And easier way of saving this is that there is currently no need for the parking for the existing tenants. I'd think that even after they start redoing the rest of the unfinished commercial space that this would be too much parking for the site. I'll see what I can find out.
Big news. Next week's council agenda was just posted and a brownfield plan has been submitted to the council for the 500 block of South Washington/South Capitol.
•Phase I – Building 1 – 501 S. Capitol office building renovation into a mixed-use building with approximately 23,461 square feet of finished office/commercial space and four (4) floors of residential with an estimated 44 multifamily residential apartments. Start of construction beginning with asbestos abatement and demolition is anticipated to begin by November 14, 2019 with completion of full renovation by August 1, 2021.
Building 2 – Newly constructed mixed-use building along South Capitol Avenue and West Hillsdale Street with an estimated 116 multifamily residential apartments and approximately 3,500 square feet commercial.Start of construction beginning with site demolition is anticipated to begin by September 1, 2020 and new construction completion by May 1, 2022.
•Phase II – is not part of this Brownfield Plan currently and will be committed to upon the success of Phase I. Phase II contemplates a newly constructed mixed-use building along South Washington Avenue and Lenawee Street that will bring additional multifamily residential apartments and commercial. Phase II will require an amendment to this Brownfield Plan to address further eligible activity costs which will allow this phase to be completed in the future.
@gbinlansing I'm all around that neighborhood pretty frequently, up and down the streets including the dead ends and I have to disagree. This neighborhood is too isolated from main thoroughfares and commercial districts, too many of the houses are small and many were built poorly compared with other houses of the era. The street layout hurts the neighborhood a lot, the dead ends and the single, freeway-style exit off Aurelius are counter productive. The neighborhood is well positioned in the Lansing area overall so if some streets were rearranged and maybe a commercial strip added on Aurelius this neighborhood could quickly turn around. I sort of have some ideas for this area, but I'm not sure they would be realistic.
But I agree about schools, they make for fantastic reuse projects. I have faith that Walter French will eventually be restored and put back to use even if the current owner fails. Otto will be a little more of a challenge, there is a lot of land there so maybe a large redevelopment with the old Otto building as a centerpiece would be a good move.
@MichMatters I saw that at Motor Wheel, I was assuming this would be for their new office parking. It would seem to be a little overkill but I wouldn't be surprised if they could end up 600-800 workers there when filled up. I think they have around 100k sq ft of potential office space??
I own a house very, very close to the Lake Trust property so I'm excited to see this going forward. Based on the current info/renderings I have no complaints. The Lake Trust building itself should be a pretty straightforward clean-up/rehab, it's well built and the brutalist(ish) design has grown on me. The new building is scaled well for the area and looks simple but nice, like many projects the quality of materials will really dictate my opinion on this one. I like that they're not trying to develop the whole site now, maybe with some luck we'll end up with something more special facing Washington Sq.
I really want to find out how many spaces they are building. I remember even when they had the LPD North Precinct in a significant part of the space under renovation, that even with all of the cop cars and their personal cars, the lot was never filled. Just kind of disappointed for them to put the cart before the horse, instead of studying to see if that much parking is actually needed, or at least wait until they get some tenants to see if that land needed to be parking. These two new lots are bigger than the existing two; another three full rows of parking if I'm looking at the aerials correctly. It's just weird to see given that this is the edge of downtown, and how we've been trying to make things more urban around here.
Yeah, I'm not too critical of what's being proposed for this phase of the Lake Trust redevelopment. I'd have liked to have seen a bit more height, of course, but five stories kind of seems to be the limit for this area as far as developers are concerned.
Like you said, though, I do hope something more substantial, architecturally, is built in the second phase along Washington.
Is Capitol 2-way now, or are the parking spots in the renderings facing the wrong direction? Is there anywhere else along Capitol that has diagonal street parking like that? I know it's common on the Washington side.
Comments
https://www.lansingcitypulse.com/stories/genesee-street-school-to-reopen-as-apartments,13287
I'm kind of skeptical of the market for these micro-units, but maybe there is one there for them. But really, I'm just glad to see the building get new life.
Speaking of old schools, the OPRA district designation for the old Holmes Street School is making its way through council. The D&P Committee approved a public hearing for the designation for October 14 to have it declared "functionally obsolete" to aid in the renovation of the property. It is proped to have 41 apartment units, and like the old Genesee Street School, will be studios and 1 bedrooms, though this one will have "high-end finishes." The entire property will be re-landscaped. So it sounds a bit more high-end, which will be strange for that neighborhood.
Anyway, they want to start the renovation of the old Holmes Street School in November, and have it wrapped up by June 2021. So, quite an extensive renovation it's sounding like.
I'm also glad to see the Holmes St project is moving forward but I share your doubts about whether something high-end will really work in that area. That neighborhood is isolated and doesn't have a whole lot going for it right now. I don't see it improving without some big, probably unrealistic, changes.
The first renderings appear on page 110:
https://lansingmi.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_09232019-2788
Looks like the biggest costs will be for asbestos abatement given the age of the office building.
But I agree about schools, they make for fantastic reuse projects. I have faith that Walter French will eventually be restored and put back to use even if the current owner fails. Otto will be a little more of a challenge, there is a lot of land there so maybe a large redevelopment with the old Otto building as a centerpiece would be a good move.
@MichMatters I saw that at Motor Wheel, I was assuming this would be for their new office parking. It would seem to be a little overkill but I wouldn't be surprised if they could end up 600-800 workers there when filled up. I think they have around 100k sq ft of potential office space??
I own a house very, very close to the Lake Trust property so I'm excited to see this going forward. Based on the current info/renderings I have no complaints. The Lake Trust building itself should be a pretty straightforward clean-up/rehab, it's well built and the brutalist(ish) design has grown on me. The new building is scaled well for the area and looks simple but nice, like many projects the quality of materials will really dictate my opinion on this one. I like that they're not trying to develop the whole site now, maybe with some luck we'll end up with something more special facing Washington Sq.
Yeah, I'm not too critical of what's being proposed for this phase of the Lake Trust redevelopment. I'd have liked to have seen a bit more height, of course, but five stories kind of seems to be the limit for this area as far as developers are concerned.
Like you said, though, I do hope something more substantial, architecturally, is built in the second phase along Washington.