I've long thought that the stretch of Cedar in between the river and Cavanagh has good potential to become sort of a semi-urban district with some mixed use buildings and apartments along Cedar along with a general trend to build closer to the street. In particular there's a cluster of older buildings including the Family Dollar, Jackpot and the couple mechanics shops near there that I've always thought could make for decent buildings if fixed up properly. I also like the unique older plaza just north of Holmes as well, it needs some serious love but could be an interesting little place.
Regardless of all that, I'm really glad to see the Walter French project moving forward. I saw that one of their documents showed a sketch of the building with the large historically accurate windows, that is comforting to see and I think it will make a massive difference in the look of the building.
The new Form-Based Code has this intersection zoned as MX-3 - Mixed-use District Center. Further down Cedar at Greenlawn is another one of these zonings, and then Cedar and Holmes. So that's the plan of the city, to turn these areas in district centers. Propose amendments to the code set standards such as that corner lots must have the first 20-feet of their frontage occupied by the building, minimum height of 2 stories/max height of 6, side or rear yard parking (or only in front yard on corner lots on secondary streets), etc.
There an article about the Lake Trust development in the LSJ.com [free] and I also saw a report on YouTube fox47 where they talk to the developer. He said the building's '60s Brutalist cement façade is a historic representation of this type of architecture, and therefore he wants to keep most of the details of the present building. Was that building built in the the '60s? I was thinking it was built in the '70s. I don't really agree with the significance of the design, but it's great that the building is being repurposed. There was no mention of what is going on with the S. Washington Ave side. I hope to hear the whole block is being developed.
I can't say I'm a huge fan of the building but brutalist designs have grown on me over the years and the Lake Trust building is decent. I'm not optimistic about what they'd end up doing if they were to heavily alter the facade so I'm content to see it largely stay as-is. The article does confirm that they're building a new 117 unit building at the NE corner of Capital & Hillsdale, they have excavated the footprint of the building already. It looks as though they wont be doing anything along Washington quite yet, I think this is one of the sites vying for the potential performing arts center, it's likely to be one of my personal favorite spots to see that project to go.
TUESDAY, Sept. 21 — The Lansing area will receive $2 million in state funding to go toward a future performance hall as part of the coming year's state budget.
The shot in state funding, when added to an $8 million in upfront revenue expected from the bonding of public, educational and government access (PEG) fees, is expected to give the city the $10 million needed to get the ball rolling on a 1,200-to 1,500-seat center.
"This is going to happen," said Lansing Mayor Andy Schor. "Younger and older people alike who enjoy live music won't need to drive to Grand Rapids or Detroit as much to hear it."
Discussions on where the performance hall will be located and other details will begin in earnest with the state money on the way, said Schor, adding that he hopes to have more to announce in the next few months.
The performance complex would include the Lansing Public Media Center, which has accumulated $8 million in so-called PEG fees that can be put into the project, said Dominic Cochran, the center’s director.
Very nice and interseting study done by urban planning students at MSU that the Saginaw Street corridor improvement authority is looking at. This is my old hood, so I really liked to see how others view the area.
Of course they can physically fit two way streets there but I'm not sure what traffic would be like. If they were to ever reduce lanes on Saginaw/Oakland there'd have to be a lot of thought given to where they push traffic to, you'd probably have to move it to multiple surface streets along with 496, it'd require a big shift in people's driving habits. Maybe it could be done without creating a traffic disaster, if so I'm all for it.
A larger scale, of course, but Lansing is not unfamiliar with two-waying one-way streets; we're doing a major turn-over right now. I think it will eventually happen; it's really about the will to do it and if it's even on the radar of the city government. I also think that if it happens, you'd only need to do it to Saginaw. Saginaw and Oakland work as a pair; it wouldn't make any sense to have two of these avenues unless the plan would be to turn Oakland into a local/neighborhood street. But, honestly, you could keep Oakland one way, and the east-bound through-traffic could be spread out over Saginaw, Kalamazoo and 496.
It'd honestly not be a huge deal, though I think it'd be wise to offer way more frequent bus service along Saginaw so so many cars coming in from Delta Township from the west wouldn't need to.
Comments
Regardless of all that, I'm really glad to see the Walter French project moving forward. I saw that one of their documents showed a sketch of the building with the large historically accurate windows, that is comforting to see and I think it will make a massive difference in the look of the building.
https://civicclerk.blob.core.windows.net/stream/LANSINGMI/8146e0d1-4c72-4e97-9cc8-a7e4027d47e4.pdf?sv=2015-12-11&sr=b&sig=kv0P70pqkUq738tPMyF1UGrDGRSG5MJI8xC9/mRobtA=&st=2021-09-24T03:15:53Z&se=2022-09-24T03:20:53Z&sp=r&rscc=no-cache&rsct=application/pdf
It'd honestly not be a huge deal, though I think it'd be wise to offer way more frequent bus service along Saginaw so so many cars coming in from Delta Township from the west wouldn't need to.