I started thinking it through and was wondering if the city would/should be offering tax incentives to raze an entire single-family neighborhood for new housing. I'm not so sure about that. Maybe this project actually will proceed with no major incentives.
The OPRA revocation at Prudden is interesting, for some reason I thought it was originally for the office project and it was pulled to resubmit for the upcoming residential rehab. Now I have no clue what they're doing.
The first thing I noticed on this site was they cut down all the trees. Many of them were healthy and quite old. I am hoping the city develops a plan to make this area more pedestrian friendly. There sould be walkways to Old Town and Downtown perhaps on old rail paths.
@MichMatters The new planning commission packet has a letter from H Inc regarding the OPRA at 700 May, they said that the OPRA being revoked is the one for the commercial project they had previously proposed and that they will now be seeking a Neighborhood Enterprise Zone incentive.
You must be talking about D&P Commitee agenda, which is what I got the info from; I don't see any upcoming planning commission agendas out yet.
That's what I figured for the new development, that they'd be requesting an NEZ or brownfield or both. Yeah, the the OPRA was for the commercial project that they approved in December.
We get some big clues in this week's city pulse about the "new" city hall. The mayor's spokesperson confirms that it will be a renovated building downtown, and plans will be unveiled "really soon." The old Masonic Temple/Cooley Building is really the only structure I can think of of any real size that would be mostly or entirely vacant and which could handle the space needed for a new city hall. They could also develop the surface parking lot next to it for overflow space if necessary.
We also get the news that the mayor is moving very quickly on the the Gentilozzi projects, and will submit resolutions for the council next Monday at the request of Council President Wood, which would go to Committee of the Whole. It's apparently just a simple grant acceptance, a budget supplemental. I'm not sure of the process after that, though. What we do know is that they have the money to start this and it won't need a rezoning, so I'm not sure if the council even sees the project after accepting the grant. So, that'd likely be the grant acceptance may possibly be the only part of the process where you'll get a public hearing on this.
Due to the excessive tree cutting at the Pointe West Condos and the H Inc. development I think it is imperative that there be a new ordinance to protect trees from being cut down when they don't impact the new building. I don't understand why they even want to clear-cut sites like this. H Inc. didn't pull demo permits so I think it is shady.
The city needs to make street redesign a real priority with MDOT because of all the development going on around Cedar/Larch/Oakland/Saginaw. If we can't get two-ways at least on-street parking will help slow things down and limit off-street lots to facilitate denser development. The railways are still active so it will be impossible to utilize them for now.
@MichMatters If Gentilozzi follows through with the parking garage over Grand it will have to go through Act 33 review for use of air rights with Planning Commission and Council. I agree with most of you that it is bad planning practice and will inhibit future development on the low hanging fruit that is Grand Ave. I'd like more details about why they aren't partnering with Davenport (owns the three vacant lots at the southeast corner of the block) to locate the parking garage completely on that block.
I totally agree on the tree cutting, something should be done. I'd also love to see the city recommit itself to having a tree every X feet/or for every lot in the right of way.
The Cedar/Larch and Saginaw/Oakland corridors do need attention whether being converted to two way or not. As I've paid more attention I've realized that Saginaw wouldn't be terribly hard to convert into a 5 lane road, which I think is appropriate, then Oakland would become a 2 or 3 lane minor arterial (I'd like to see part of it changed to Grand River Ave to make that name continuous). Cedar/Larch is tougher because neither could become 5 lanes and I'm not sure two 3 lane roads would be considered adequate. Some sort of asymmetrical lane configuration may work.
I like the idea of partnering with Davenport and sharing parking, but he could just as well add 2-3 floors of additional parking to the existing footprint west of Grand and likely get to the desired number of spaces. The Davenport option would potentially allow him to keep the larger rooftop park though.
I'd like more details about why they aren't partnering with Davenport (owns the three vacant lots at the southeast corner of the block) to locate the parking garage completely on that block.
citykid, you might want to bring this up to them and/or someone on council. lol Because, like...yeah, that'd be kind of perfect. It's not as if they've been particularly successful in getting tenants for those two smaller buildings in that area, to put it lightly.
Hmmm, not seeing the grant acceptance on the Committee of the Whole agenda for Monday released today...
The agenda for Monday's council meeting has been posted and I don't see anything regarding the Gentilozzi projects or anything else much of note besides one item: Apparently the city is selling its lot on Grand Ave at Lenawee to the Boji's for $760k. Now I'm wondering if the Boji's are the ones working with CATA to building their offices here or are the plans for this block changing again?
Comments
The OPRA revocation at Prudden is interesting, for some reason I thought it was originally for the office project and it was pulled to resubmit for the upcoming residential rehab. Now I have no clue what they're doing.
https://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/news/local/2023/08/20/affordable-housing-downtown-lansing-riverview-220-housing-commission/70619990007/
That's what I figured for the new development, that they'd be requesting an NEZ or brownfield or both. Yeah, the the OPRA was for the commercial project that they approved in December.
We also get the news that the mayor is moving very quickly on the the Gentilozzi projects, and will submit resolutions for the council next Monday at the request of Council President Wood, which would go to Committee of the Whole. It's apparently just a simple grant acceptance, a budget supplemental. I'm not sure of the process after that, though. What we do know is that they have the money to start this and it won't need a rezoning, so I'm not sure if the council even sees the project after accepting the grant. So, that'd likely be the grant acceptance may possibly be the only part of the process where you'll get a public hearing on this.
The city needs to make street redesign a real priority with MDOT because of all the development going on around Cedar/Larch/Oakland/Saginaw. If we can't get two-ways at least on-street parking will help slow things down and limit off-street lots to facilitate denser development. The railways are still active so it will be impossible to utilize them for now.
@MichMatters If Gentilozzi follows through with the parking garage over Grand it will have to go through Act 33 review for use of air rights with Planning Commission and Council. I agree with most of you that it is bad planning practice and will inhibit future development on the low hanging fruit that is Grand Ave. I'd like more details about why they aren't partnering with Davenport (owns the three vacant lots at the southeast corner of the block) to locate the parking garage completely on that block.
The Cedar/Larch and Saginaw/Oakland corridors do need attention whether being converted to two way or not. As I've paid more attention I've realized that Saginaw wouldn't be terribly hard to convert into a 5 lane road, which I think is appropriate, then Oakland would become a 2 or 3 lane minor arterial (I'd like to see part of it changed to Grand River Ave to make that name continuous). Cedar/Larch is tougher because neither could become 5 lanes and I'm not sure two 3 lane roads would be considered adequate. Some sort of asymmetrical lane configuration may work.
I like the idea of partnering with Davenport and sharing parking, but he could just as well add 2-3 floors of additional parking to the existing footprint west of Grand and likely get to the desired number of spaces. The Davenport option would potentially allow him to keep the larger rooftop park though.
citykid, you might want to bring this up to them and/or someone on council. lol Because, like...yeah, that'd be kind of perfect. It's not as if they've been particularly successful in getting tenants for those two smaller buildings in that area, to put it lightly.
Hmmm, not seeing the grant acceptance on the Committee of the Whole agenda for Monday released today...
https://content.civicplus.com/api/assets/3af1b227-1c09-4529-b472-e68db8907de8?cache=1800