I had the same thought on Clara's. I'm big on historical preservation/adaptation and I'm not sure I'm a fan of this. Even replacing simple windows of this Era I wouldn't be a fan of. Windows of that age are easily repaired and easily outlast replacement windows. The stained glass aspect makes them costly to repair but it's such an important element to that building. To divide up that "great hall" space would be horrible in my opinion. Gillespie really isn't impressing me in terms of sensitivity to local history...nor the architects they've used.
Yeah, saw the parking garage today, too. They are going more retro with it than I'd have imagined; the brick veneer is nearly identical to the old 60's-era buildings.
@Lymon89 Agreed, I've been fulling stripping and reglazing all the windows in my house. I don't think the stained glass windows should even be that difficult to fix if you're not dealing with broken glass. I managed to regrout and repair some of the lead on some leaded windows in my old house without any prior experience, it wasn't terribly difficult. Gillespie developments have been mostly disappointing (not to beat a dead horse, it's been discussed here many times), I've been hoping that his developments would build some sort of critical mass that would bring in other players but that hasn't really happened yet.
Fox 47 had a story today about less state workers and they interviewed Gentilozzi, he said they will have details of a new multi family development within a few weeks. They alluded to it involving the Atrium Building, he also owns the parking lot at Michigan & Grand and the two-floor empty building adjacent to it among other properties around downtown. My big question is will this be another 4-5 floor stick built building or will Lansing finally get its first new construction residential high rise downtown in decades?
I highly doubt it's going to be a tower; there would have been rumors about this since stuff leaks.
Read through this month's Planning Board meeting (Oct 5th). It looks like the board held off on approving the sell of Lot 50 (Shiawassee and Pere Marquette) to the Gillespies. They seemed to be a bit annoyed that this hadn't been presented to them for review and simply forwarded to them to pass. So what they are demanding is an appraisal and public marketing of the site before they consider the sale.
I'm kind of with them on this one; the city needs to be more public with this stuff, otherwise, things start looking fishy. What good did come out of this discussion is that this is also the first time I've heard a Planning Board president state that there are too many surface lots in the Stadium District and downtown in general. It sounds like they just want the city to do due diligence on these deals.
There was that mention of the local venture capital guy who wanted to build a high rise, I wouldn't be surprised to see him partnering with a developer. One of the downtown organizations' Facebook groups recently posted a picture of that abandoned building on Grand and mentioned something about upcoming news as well. Regardless, even an 8 or 10 floor building would be impressive relative to what we've seen lately.
Regarding the lot on Pere Marquette, it does seem obvious that it should be appraised and a public sale also seems to be a good idea on just about any city property that isn't going through an RFP. I do still wish the city would just bite the bullet and finance a parking garage somewhere sensible within the Stadium District.
I noticed they put a nice curb bump-out on St. Joseph downtown where you turn right onto Walnut. It looks like that whole right turn lane might become street parking. They had some bollards put up blocking it all off, I’d assume until they repaint it and put signage up, so people don’t fly into the newly extended curb.
I was also wondering if that was going to be parking, I'm not sure how parallel parking on that part of St Joe will work out the way people drive there though.
I'm actually kind of glad they are killing off that slip lane. I'd use it in the morning from time to time and it always felt so dangerous even if northbound traffic wasn't supposed to merge into that lane. Makes sense even moreso given that the two-way conversion is imminent.
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https://www.fox47news.com/neighborhoods/downtown-old-town-reo-town/there-are-fewer-state-workers-in-lansings-downtown-but-there-may-soon-be-more-apartments
Read through this month's Planning Board meeting (Oct 5th). It looks like the board held off on approving the sell of Lot 50 (Shiawassee and Pere Marquette) to the Gillespies. They seemed to be a bit annoyed that this hadn't been presented to them for review and simply forwarded to them to pass. So what they are demanding is an appraisal and public marketing of the site before they consider the sale.
I'm kind of with them on this one; the city needs to be more public with this stuff, otherwise, things start looking fishy. What good did come out of this discussion is that this is also the first time I've heard a Planning Board president state that there are too many surface lots in the Stadium District and downtown in general. It sounds like they just want the city to do due diligence on these deals.
Regarding the lot on Pere Marquette, it does seem obvious that it should be appraised and a public sale also seems to be a good idea on just about any city property that isn't going through an RFP. I do still wish the city would just bite the bullet and finance a parking garage somewhere sensible within the Stadium District.