In the city council agenda for Monday is a 425 Agreement with Windsor Township for a portion of the township at Canal & Billwood Highway of approximately 78 acres.
It appears to be owned by Consumers Energy. 425's are the conditional land transfer agreements like what we have for the GM plant in Delta Township or the airport in DeWitt. Appears this is for a new 'service center.' Kind of curious to know what they want from the city that the township can't provide, though, it's probably just some tax abatement. Not generally a fan of this for something like a utility company.
Also kind of hoping that this doesn't mean the closure of their Lansing service center unless there is already some kind of plan for that site, because it'd be terrible to see it sit and become blight in what is already a challenged neighborhood.
Consumers Energy is moving its mid-Michigan operations center — the site from which repair crews are dispatched to fix outages — from Lansing's north side to Windsor Charter Township, the utility company announced Monday night in a news release.
The decision will bring an end to 60 years of operations at the company's 20-acre site at 530 West Willow St.
In executing the arrangement, officials from Lansing, Windsor Charter Township and Consumers Energy are also negotiating new tax-sharing and water service agreements, the release said.
Scott Bean, a spokesman for Lansing Mayor Andy Schor, said the two entities have agreed upon an Act 425 tax-sharing agreement, which permits Consumers Energy to move to the new facility, outside of Lansing's boundaries, but the city will still retain property and income taxes from the new site.
The agreement is for 25 years with a renewal option for an additional 25 years, according to information from the city. The city will tax real and personal property within the 425 area at the normal millage rate (currently 19.44 mills). Any tax revenue on property not abated will be remitted to the township in the amount of their millage rate (currently 3.8 mills). The city will retain property tax revenue at an effective rate of 15.64 mills.
Consumers Energy is also paying for the Lansing Board of Water & Light to extend water service to the new site, which will be a paying customer to the utility service.
Financially, this would be one of the best of the 425's the city has written up. Still don't know how I feel about this, though.
The new, 77-acre operations center will be located at 7000 N. Canal Road in Windsor Township. The approximately 200 people working out of the north Lansing facility will relocate to the new site once construction is completed, Consumers Energy spokesperson Terry DeDoes said.
According to the release, utility improvements will be completed in 2023 and construction on the new facility will break ground in 2024.
Consumers Energy plans to demolish the Willow Street building once the move is completed, the release said. At that point, they will "ensure the site is readied for future commercial growth in Lansing’s north side."
"The city’s economic development team will work on marketing the site to potential developers," Bean said.
In power company related news, some demo will be starting at Eckert which apparently was decomissioned late last year. Hadn't realized it went offline already.
I'm not mad at all to see that Consumers Facility move off of Willow. It may not be great in the short term as you lose the extra workers in the area but it offers a really significant redevelopment opportunity that could help change the fate of that struggling neighborhood. I just hope it doesn't take too incredibly long for the site to see new use.
Regarding Eckert, I also somehow missed that it was already offline. It's good to see them making moves in preparation for redevelopment.
Eckert's last boiler was decommissioned in Dec 2020.
I don't see anything happening with the Consumers Energy service center site anytime soon. The region just has no recent track record of quickly finding developers for these sites or even any interest in it. There's just never any urgency; it's why there hasn't been the repurposing of even parts of the old RACER trust sites all these years later, which is insane. The Consumers' site is likely to need remediation, too. I guess my hope is that the high-rise being proposed across the river might force the city to pay attention to the area, but I'm not hopeful about that.
All that said, I'm kind of ecstatic that the city is once again using its influence with the BWL to condition moves like this. I just wished they added an additional condition that Consumers' have a plan for when they'll have the Lansing site ready for development, something legal to hold them to a timeline.
Yeah, I don't necessarily expect the Consumers site be redeveloped too quickly without a concerted effort on the city's part. I imagine whoever develops the property will probably want to buy the apartments in front there and tear them down.
I also hope the city pays more attention to the area, I'd really like to see an effort to buy the houses on Willow east of Seymour with back yards to river and market them for higher density development. There's no reason to have riverfront property near Old Town be occupied by these mediocre houses on extremely deep lots, it's just a lot of wasted space.
Good news on that front, then. The area was rezoned for higher density under the new form-based code. The area north and east of that intersection can be used for single family homes on small lots all the way to small 6-unit apartment buildings or rowhomes. Interestingly enough, none of these lots would be allowed if created under the current code, because all of the depths are more than the 200-foot max limit.
I'd hope for the retention of the victorian-styled homes east of Grand River along Willow, but I'd like to see the lots divided and combined to allow for a whole other riverfront block.
I'm somewhat of a preservationist and I'd argue none of the houses on that stretch of Willow are worthy of preservation besides the Head Start building. That being said I'd prefer to see mid or high rises here and not small apartment buildings, hopefully a zoning variance is in the future for these properties.
Story with mention of the Moneyball redevelopment on the 900 west block of Saginaw near the end. He plans to have the project done by either spring or summer of next year.
The city packet mentioned demolition of existing building; this story mentions renovation, but admits that the floor of the building has partially collapsed into the basement. Either way, it's a whole rebuild of the site.
Comments
It appears to be owned by Consumers Energy. 425's are the conditional land transfer agreements like what we have for the GM plant in Delta Township or the airport in DeWitt. Appears this is for a new 'service center.' Kind of curious to know what they want from the city that the township can't provide, though, it's probably just some tax abatement. Not generally a fan of this for something like a utility company.
Also kind of hoping that this doesn't mean the closure of their Lansing service center unless there is already some kind of plan for that site, because it'd be terrible to see it sit and become blight in what is already a challenged neighborhood.
Financially, this would be one of the best of the 425's the city has written up. Still don't know how I feel about this, though.
https://www.wilx.com/2022/10/24/bwl-set-demolish-four-structures-eckert-power-station/?outputType=amp
Regarding Eckert, I also somehow missed that it was already offline. It's good to see them making moves in preparation for redevelopment.
I don't see anything happening with the Consumers Energy service center site anytime soon. The region just has no recent track record of quickly finding developers for these sites or even any interest in it. There's just never any urgency; it's why there hasn't been the repurposing of even parts of the old RACER trust sites all these years later, which is insane. The Consumers' site is likely to need remediation, too. I guess my hope is that the high-rise being proposed across the river might force the city to pay attention to the area, but I'm not hopeful about that.
All that said, I'm kind of ecstatic that the city is once again using its influence with the BWL to condition moves like this. I just wished they added an additional condition that Consumers' have a plan for when they'll have the Lansing site ready for development, something legal to hold them to a timeline.
I also hope the city pays more attention to the area, I'd really like to see an effort to buy the houses on Willow east of Seymour with back yards to river and market them for higher density development. There's no reason to have riverfront property near Old Town be occupied by these mediocre houses on extremely deep lots, it's just a lot of wasted space.
I'd hope for the retention of the victorian-styled homes east of Grand River along Willow, but I'd like to see the lots divided and combined to allow for a whole other riverfront block.
https://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/news/local/2022/10/31/desmond-fergusons-moneyball-sportswear-to-see-new-hq-in-lansing/69555751007/
The city packet mentioned demolition of existing building; this story mentions renovation, but admits that the floor of the building has partially collapsed into the basement. Either way, it's a whole rebuild of the site.