DLI’s initial proposal includes three social districts:
The alley from Ottawa Street to Washtenaw Street, behind the 200 block of South Washington
Near Rotary Park around MP Social and the former City Market
An alley behind the 2000 block of East Michigan Avenue, near Arcardia, the Green Door and the Avenue
I'm glad Lansing is moving towards establishing a few of these districts. I could see these things becoming more permanent post-COVID, which I would argue is a good thing. The ability to move freely between business that are under the same social district is great. A few years back I was in Savannah GA, where they have a large area that functions similarly. These districts don't even need to stay in these places, but more permanent locations that eat up parking spaces later on would be perfect I think.
I absolutely love this, not only for COVID but in general. I specifically choose places with outdoor seating from spring-fall, which means I have a short rotation list of places.
I like this idea and I'm sure there's lots of potentially interesting outdoor spaces that could be created through this. In particular, I always thought it would be cool to use some of the alleys downtown the same way EL and some other cities do. This might help out the Masonic Temple buildings potential some, I think it would make a good BOB-style entertainment building with its large spaces and decent sized auditorium.
I noticed the 600 building's progress yesterday. It all has to come together yet so I hope it looks good when finished. The "shades of gray" wall facing S Cedar is OK. I do like the "stonework" and bricks they are using on the first floor. They have installed stone "looking" panels around the base of the columns at the front entrance of the supermarket which gives a nice downtown look in that space. I also noted the penthouse across the street is looking really cool nearly finished by the looks.
I was going out to Costco via Michigan Ave and saw the street side buildings that are going up at the Red Cedar site, they are situated on top of an earth berm that makes them appear taller starting almost a story above street level. So far I am liking the layout and the buildings look like they will have some interesting exterior features.
The renovation of the one-story building across from Art's Pub on Hosmer has restarted. All the old siding has been removed, the old facade is not very special or historic-looking so I am sure the will put up some new siding. I can not tell what business is going in, there. The building next door is much more interesting with brick arched window frames.
Mich - I would guess a MJ growing facility. Last time I was through that area, all of the older industrial/warehouse buildings on that side of the road were getting blocked up, perhaps for security purposes.
Also while riding around town recently, I noticed that all of the numerous Vision auto repair locations are getting new branding as "Gerber" auto repair. Anyone know if this is a rebranding event, or did the franchise get sold?
Gerber is a nationwide auto body repair group and bought all the Vision Collision. They also bought the independent body shop on S Penn (Capital City Collision) earlier this year.
We'd talked about the 324 South Hosmer back in March, but never figured out what it was. Currently, they were issued a building permit for "build out and repair" back in late December and then issued a permit for an "interior build out" in early June. No other clues. I typed in the owner, and it traces back to a large office complex in Ann Arbor. However, it's all computer/data processing businesses and engineering firms, nothing marijuana-related. It's also not on the city's map of marijuana businesses, though the two grow facilities on the south side of Kalamazoo near that intersection are.
Dymaxion is one of the companies with a lot of proposed projects around town, though I'm not sure if they've actually completed any of their recent proposals, yet.
I think this building would be too small for a grow house. The newest grow house is in several buildings on the south side Kalamazoo. That may have been the site where the bricked-up windows were noticed. That project seems to be nearing completion, I noticed an array of some sort of air conditioning? units have been installed on the roof. I am not sure what the building with the bowed roof on the north corner is but I don't' think there are going to be any grow houses on the north side of Kalamazoo. The grow house on Hosmer and Hazel is cavernous! I caught a glimpse while some of the doors were open and they will be growing a lot of MJ in there. It still seems kind of unreal to me after all those years of prohibition and the feeling of being a criminal for buying and smoking MJ to the present day here in Lansing where huge amounts of money are being invested in growing and selling marijuana. This leads me to the idea of defunding the police, by legalizing MJ we defunded and made redundant all the police that used to enforce MJ prohibition. We took away a force that was used against people of color and the poor and can now use those funds and officers for other more appropriate needs. Sorry!, it's just what is on my mind these crazy days.
Comments
Proposed locations per the article:
I'm glad Lansing is moving towards establishing a few of these districts. I could see these things becoming more permanent post-COVID, which I would argue is a good thing. The ability to move freely between business that are under the same social district is great. A few years back I was in Savannah GA, where they have a large area that functions similarly. These districts don't even need to stay in these places, but more permanent locations that eat up parking spaces later on would be perfect I think.
I was going out to Costco via Michigan Ave and saw the street side buildings that are going up at the Red Cedar site, they are situated on top of an earth berm that makes them appear taller starting almost a story above street level. So far I am liking the layout and the buildings look like they will have some interesting exterior features.
Here is the owner of the site:
https://www.mbcloans.biz/
But here is the taxpayer:
https://www.dymaxiondevelopment.com/
Dymaxion is one of the companies with a lot of proposed projects around town, though I'm not sure if they've actually completed any of their recent proposals, yet.