It may finally be happening... The State parking lots between the Ottawa/Hannah Buildings and the Hall of Justice is set to become a park, work could begin next spring. Needless to say, this fantastic and long-awaited news.
Yeah, I was excited when I saw this. I hope this spurs redevelopment of the parking lots on the other side of Allegan, eventually. I'm very curious about the discussions between the Capitol Commission and DTMB on this, because it could point towards how to finally get th state to consolidate parking in its other unused lots, downtown.
I am as supportive as the next person but really underwhelmed by the concept design in the 11/21 LSJ. The old 'Michigan relief with ponds as the lakes' design was so cool. If anyone is interested I can put up the 1987 Capitol Park Design and 2015 Greening America's Capitals reports on the city's planning webpage.
I certainly hope they develop this concept a bit more - the northwest and southeast quadrants will really need to be something other than grass lawns - but I'm just so happy about getting rid of those awful surface lots. Also, I'm confused about why this would be a "public-private" partnership, as the state already owns the land. I'm trying to figure out where the profit is in this to get a private developer to help construct this. This should be something done entirely within the public sphere, IMO, if it's essentially a state park.
I remember the old Capitol Park design, though I imagine they'd quickly give the reason that something of that detail is out of their budget. It'd definitely be preferable. Citykid, perhaps you could post it on the city's website and then send the Commission a link over to it or something to get it on their radar to motivate them a bit more about what this can be.
The public/private partnership is confusing to me as well, I assume they're looking for corporate sponsors to help fund certain features at the park.
I'm not going to even attempt to pass any judgement on the current design as it's so early in the process. I will say that I'd rather them do a really good job on the parts of the property they develop while leaving those greenspaces open for future additions to the park rather than trying to fill up every corner of the space on a limited budget. I was a fan of that old 1987 designs that was shown in the 2015 report, I certainly wouldn't be against recycling aspects of that plan.
The LSJ article does leave a little room for concern with the closing quote: "...We also need to address the current site usage with other state agencies before we can proceed." I'd like to think that if they're at this stage of the project where their parading plans around in public and speaking about start dates that there's been at least a tacit approval from the relevant departments, but who knows?
I wouldn't even call these plans; we're at the very beginning of this. What is being shown is a concept, at best. It really does leave questions as to who they've talked to in the state on this. But like you said, that they've conceived this would imply that they've discussed this with someone in the state. The DTMB manages these properties, so I'd definitely hope that they've had early discussions with them about this, either directly or indirectly. Might try to contact the Commission to see if there is any more info on this.
Perhaps the governor has shown support and or indicated a willingness to force it through should the departments resist, when I contacted Sarah Anthony's office asking about this some time ago it was implied that the governor could make it happen in spite of the Capitol Commission and DTMB not seeing eye to eye.
A new Neighborhood Enterprise Zone (NEZ) is being proposed, and this one much larger than the previous iterations. It's to be called the "Wheel District" NEZ:
NEZs reduces property taxes temporarily to induce housing development/redevelopment. Property in this zone is currently assessed at $7.5 million.
I'm all in favor of this. It's interesting that the Pennsylvania frontage isn't included even where Hepler has already demoed houses, I wonder what the logic is there? I do hope he does something more interesting with his current project than a couple hundred of those grey townhouse buildings shown in the conceptual renderings.
This has the potential to be one of those things that has a huge long-term effect on the city. The area around MW Lofts was already well positioned to be its own neighborhood node and eventually merge into downtown via the growth of the Larch/Cedar corridor, Hepler's new development and this NEZ just expand what's possible. The industrial complex to the north across Oakland is low-hanging fruit that has a ton of potential to be a pretty cool area if it should ever fall out of use, and perhaps if things go well it could help bring the Penn/Grand River/High St area out of the doldrums.
On another note, Google Maps has updated its 3d imagery for most of central Lansing and EL/MSU in the past couple weeks, the imagery is no older than a few months. Just wanted to share as I always appreciate looking at the aerial views as new projects fill in the cityscape.
Comments
https://www.wlns.com/news/new-park-planned-for-michigan-capitol/
I certainly hope they develop this concept a bit more - the northwest and southeast quadrants will really need to be something other than grass lawns - but I'm just so happy about getting rid of those awful surface lots. Also, I'm confused about why this would be a "public-private" partnership, as the state already owns the land. I'm trying to figure out where the profit is in this to get a private developer to help construct this. This should be something done entirely within the public sphere, IMO, if it's essentially a state park.
I remember the old Capitol Park design, though I imagine they'd quickly give the reason that something of that detail is out of their budget. It'd definitely be preferable. Citykid, perhaps you could post it on the city's website and then send the Commission a link over to it or something to get it on their radar to motivate them a bit more about what this can be.
I'm not going to even attempt to pass any judgement on the current design as it's so early in the process. I will say that I'd rather them do a really good job on the parts of the property they develop while leaving those greenspaces open for future additions to the park rather than trying to fill up every corner of the space on a limited budget. I was a fan of that old 1987 designs that was shown in the 2015 report, I certainly wouldn't be against recycling aspects of that plan.
The LSJ article does leave a little room for concern with the closing quote: "...We also need to address the current site usage with other state agencies before we can proceed." I'd like to think that if they're at this stage of the project where their parading plans around in public and speaking about start dates that there's been at least a tacit approval from the relevant departments, but who knows?
NEZs reduces property taxes temporarily to induce housing development/redevelopment. Property in this zone is currently assessed at $7.5 million.
This has the potential to be one of those things that has a huge long-term effect on the city. The area around MW Lofts was already well positioned to be its own neighborhood node and eventually merge into downtown via the growth of the Larch/Cedar corridor, Hepler's new development and this NEZ just expand what's possible. The industrial complex to the north across Oakland is low-hanging fruit that has a ton of potential to be a pretty cool area if it should ever fall out of use, and perhaps if things go well it could help bring the Penn/Grand River/High St area out of the doldrums.
On another note, Google Maps has updated its 3d imagery for most of central Lansing and EL/MSU in the past couple weeks, the imagery is no older than a few months. Just wanted to share as I always appreciate looking at the aerial views as new projects fill in the cityscape.