EAST LANSING – The city council has cleared the way for the next step in a proposed redevelopment project for the western end of the city's downtown.
Park District Investment Group is proposing to demolish seven properties near the corner of Grand River Avenue and Abbot Road — including a former Citizens Bank building — and replace them with an eight-story building, including 82 hotel rooms on two floors.
There would be a restaurant on the first floor, and 77 apartments on five residential floors. Two levels of underground parking would have 273 parking spaces.
A site plan and special use permit for six properties in the 100 block of West Grand River passed the council 4-1 Tuesday, as did similar requests for 341-345 Evergreen Avenue. Council members also approved a rezoning request for the Evergreen properties.
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The long-vacant Evergreen Arms apartment buildings would also be demolished and replaced with a four-story mixed-use building. There would be first-floor retail and 42 one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments on the upper floors.
The next step in the process involves examining Park District Investment Group's finances to determine whether the proposed project has the necessary financial backing.
BTW, this is the kind of person you get on council when you don't pay attention and/or don't vote:
Council member Ruth Beier voted no on all the requests, saying the proposed project would have a "negative impact" on the city.
She has been against just about every major development since reaching council. You guys know that I can be a critique of projects, sometimes annoyingly so, but it's usually constructive. To have a personal bar so high that it can not be reached is not constructive criticism, it's straight-up obstruction.
The Park District proposal has passed the round of financial review necessary for the City of East Lansing to continue working with the group. This opens up the project for tax-increment financing. The DDA will have a special meeting on July 7th to discuss the review.
I believe this step was created as a result of the previous development failures. It is a practice being done by the city in an attempt to try to protect their time and money.
I was going to say that I didn't remember this step before, but this is certainly a smart addition. In fact, one city-owned land at least, I'd like to see this be an oridnance in every city across the state. It'd right up front weed out people just looking to squat on development rights, and those seriously with the means and the intent to develop city-owned land they've been granted the privilege of developing. Sounds like Chappelle may have finally gotten his ducks into a row.
I'm reading the LSJ piece on the Park District this morning, and it really just shocks me how blase everyone involved seems to be, and really shows the difference between East Lansing and its neighbor to the west. Now, I'm not just for rushing projects to say something gets done, but the reaction from everyone involved including the city government is "well, 14 yars isn't that long to get the project right." Well, no. It really is too long and its unacceptable. Everyone is also so forgiving of the other side. Chappelle should have been cut out of this project years ago, even if that meant using city funds to buy the guy out to get this done. The article also makes note of East Lansing's exhaustive financial reviews for projects like this which can extend - as we've seen - months and even years.
But, forget about the differences between East Lansing and Lansing for a minute. Ann Arbor is not known to be developed-friendly, exactly, and their NIMBYs are far worse than Ann Arbors, but they generally seem to get major things done, eventually. Don't get me wrong, East Lansing has allowed a lot of development through in recent years, but getting the bigger stuff through is like pulling teeth, and many of these "large" projects for East Lansing would be small or medium sized compared to comparable cities. Even little ole St. Anne Lofts was mired in multiple controversies. The city really needs to get it together.
I just read the article too. The City has dreams of building this blockbuster development on the land there, meanwhile many more meaningful (smaller) projects have been proposed and built. It's time the City stop focusing on one "blockbuster" redevelopment and sell off the land that it owns to individual private developers who can build projects like the HopCat building and St. Anne Lofts.
Further, the City needs to upgrade the zoning of all of the properties south of Oakhill, Elizabeth, and Linden streets to satisfy the demands of student housing. We've seen the large projects coming up in the Delta triangle. There is no reason why that small corner should get those developments while downtown and the blocks just north of it continue with obsolete and undersized standalone houses.
I don't think other development is suffering because of the Park District, though. And, quite frankly, I think that the idea of the city portraying itself as simply wanting the "right" project is really just a stall tactic on their part seeing as how current city leadership seems hellbent on downsizing every project. Quite frankly, I think there are some on the city council completely content with that corner sitting to rot if it means blocking what they deem as a too-large project, I hate to say it. If Chappelle is being deceptive, I think there are some on city council being disingenuous. There will never be a proposed project in this district that will please them short of the developer proposing some low-density townhomes. The same thing is happening with Gateway, which has been picked apart to near death, and it looks like this is what's happening at Bailey and Grand River with the rumor being that they took it off the agenda for this most recent city council meeting because they don't have council support for the brownfield plan, yet. Anything of any size downtown is given a lot of grief by the city.
But, even if we disagree on that, I agree that the city just needs to get out of the way of the project.
The developer is now threatening that if the city doesn't approved the plans as is, they'll downsize the already downsized project, because there are some tax credits that will expire in 2018 that they have to get to using. Comment from city leaders in the article seem pretty clear they won't be approving the project this week. What a mess.
EAST LANSING – If the $92 million Park District project doesn’t receive preliminary approval on Thursday, the developer likely will resubmit a “dramatically scaled back project,” Park District Investment Group’s lawyer has informed city officials.
A delay beyond July 23 puts a $12.5 million state incentive at risk, PDIG attorney Thomas Eckhardt said in a letter to city officials. Losing the incentive would have a ripple effect on the “extraordinary opportunity” under consideration for revitalizing the central business district, Eckhardt said.
He called for the city’s Downtown Development and Brownfield authorities to approve a project development plan when they meet this week. The City Council could invalidate the project later if litigation between the developer and one of its lenders isn’t resolved and if construction financing doesn’t close, according to PDIG’s proposal.
In hindsight, it seems it would have been worth the project to have purchased the building away from the developer years ago. What a mess.
CLEVELAND – An Ohio court refused on Wednesday to block the scheduled foreclosure auction of the East Lansing property targeted for redevelopment by the Park District Investment Group.
The ruling clears the way for the property to be sold at the Ingham County Courthouse as scheduled on Thursday. Ohio lender Mountain Vista Real Estate Opportunity set the minimum opening bid at $2.5 million, according to the Ingham County Sheriff’s Department, which will conduct the sale.
The property includes several parcels on West Grand River Avenue and Evergreen Avenue.
PDIG and City Center Two Project sued the lender and its parent company, DDR Corp., both of suburban Beachwood, Ohio, on June 18 after they initiated foreclosure proceedings. According to court records, a 2013 loan, originally in the amount of $31.9 million, came due on May 31 but no payment was made.
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BTW, this is the kind of person you get on council when you don't pay attention and/or don't vote:
She has been against just about every major development since reaching council. You guys know that I can be a critique of projects, sometimes annoyingly so, but it's usually constructive. To have a personal bar so high that it can not be reached is not constructive criticism, it's straight-up obstruction.
http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/news/local/2015/06/29/park-district-financial-review/29464157/
But, forget about the differences between East Lansing and Lansing for a minute. Ann Arbor is not known to be developed-friendly, exactly, and their NIMBYs are far worse than Ann Arbors, but they generally seem to get major things done, eventually. Don't get me wrong, East Lansing has allowed a lot of development through in recent years, but getting the bigger stuff through is like pulling teeth, and many of these "large" projects for East Lansing would be small or medium sized compared to comparable cities. Even little ole St. Anne Lofts was mired in multiple controversies. The city really needs to get it together.
Further, the City needs to upgrade the zoning of all of the properties south of Oakhill, Elizabeth, and Linden streets to satisfy the demands of student housing. We've seen the large projects coming up in the Delta triangle. There is no reason why that small corner should get those developments while downtown and the blocks just north of it continue with obsolete and undersized standalone houses.
But, even if we disagree on that, I agree that the city just needs to get out of the way of the project.
Ugh.