Yeah, Jared, the article says pretty clearly that they are eventually looking to put a parking garage either directly at the SE corner of Kalamazoo and Grand, or perhaps making it even bigger and taking up Boarshead. It's really not a surprise, though. When the MSP headquarters was originally planned it included a big-assed parking garage on the triangle site along with the actual building. Another concept I saw in the paper once was even to build the headquarters atop the garage. A garage at the SE corner of Kazoo and Grand seems pretty appropriate to me, though. With the city losing hundreds of parking spaces with the privatization of the South Grand Parking Ramp for Capitol Club, and losing spaces to the State with the development of the MSP, it only makes since that they'd need a garage in that area of town.
And this garage will really open the door for more high-density, mid to high rise development in that immdediate area, which is a great area for downtown to expand into.
Not sure if there's already a thread on this, and I'm not going to be much help in creating one, but I do remember seeing that there's a project going on at Olds Park where they seem to be putting in sort of a luxury clubhouse in the terrace in left field to replace the current food/beer stand that is there currently. I think it would include an actual sit-down restaurant. Anyone have any more info on it?
Bernero was quoted saying this in his State of the Cit y address: “Next month we’ll announce yet another major new development in the heart of downtown.” I'm going to guess that this will be either the "Association Project," or maybe the rennovation of Knapps.
I'm hoping for the renovation of Knapps. As much as I would like to see the Association Project announced, it would be nice to see such a large building as Knapps to finally get some use. It's hard to keep that part of downtown sustainable with such a large vacant building. East Lansing has that problem due to the large Citizens Bank building at the corner of Grand River and Abbot.
The Association Project is a proposed office building that will be targeted towards various State assciations. They haven't announced where it will be or how large it will be other that it will be significant.
In the state of the city last night he mentioned the project adding "curve appeal" to downtown, which made absolutely no sense to me. lol Maybe it will.
Who do they think will be coming downtown to justify that? I assume they must have some major private business lined up to be an anchor? Could it be they've been talking behind the scenes with Auto Owners who've seemed to have slowed down on their plans to move to DeWitt?
BTW, that State of the City was one of the best I've seen in years. Bernero is quickly coming up on, if he hasn't already passed, Hollister for what he's been able to do with the city in terms of construction projects.
Downtown has fairly low office vacancy rates, there seems to be a demand for space downtown in general. There is virtually no class A office space available downtown over like 10,000 dq ft. There is a lack of available retail also, up and down washington sq there are only about 4 vacant storefronts, 3 of them in the 400 block.
BTW, Kellys wil be closing on February 2nd to move to their new location, next to Decker's.
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Who do they think will be coming downtown to justify that? I assume they must have some major private business lined up to be an anchor? Could it be they've been talking behind the scenes with Auto Owners who've seemed to have slowed down on their plans to move to DeWitt?
BTW, that State of the City was one of the best I've seen in years. Bernero is quickly coming up on, if he hasn't already passed, Hollister for what he's been able to do with the city in terms of construction projects.
BTW, Kellys wil be closing on February 2nd to move to their new location, next to Decker's.