I agree with your criteria for buildings on Grand River. I'd love to see an eventual Wharton replacement on Grand River, but that would likely be decades off. Besides that I can't imagine many buildings that would fit the bill, maybe a new planetarium and/or MSU museum someday.
Cedar Village would have been part of the East Village plan. I'm not sure how actively the City of East Lansing is pursuing that anymore but I'm sure it's still something they'd like to see happen.
Your mentioning of the Business College addition got me thinking about the STEM facilities upgrades that are also in the planning design stage. When I went to look at the master plan I found that the 2016 Master Plan update draft is available: 2016 Master Plan draft
It's not complete being a draft, right now it only includes various maps. The map of various building projects is missing its accompanying list, so it's hard to say how large new building'additions will be or what they'll be used for. The map of street changes has a couple interesting things though. Red Cedar Rd will be rerouted a little south to run closer to Spartan Stadium and IM West. Also, it looks as though they'll be closing North Shaw between Science Rd and Red Cedar, and eliminating all the surface parking along Shaw. Another map shows the parking areas on Shaw becoming protected green space for "program/research." The full master plan should have a lot more details.
My desire to place the Data Center closer to Grand River is to increase the amount of people working on or near Grand River. This building doesn't need to be standalone, and could have other offices or small ground-floor retail, though MSU doesn't usually build with ground-floor retail in mind (exception being the new 1855 Place development).
Yeah, I agree that there's not much foot traffic but when we look at necessary infrastructure it seems to always make sense to centrally locate new developments.
In downtown Lansing the AT&T building once was filled with phone switches, but as miniaturization has continued it is no longer necessary to fill the full building with phone switches. Its brutalist architecture can be off-putting, but the building could also find other uses.
In New York City, the Verizon building was built with the same brutalist architecture and is now going through the construction process to add windows as its being converted to office.
Just adding an image of the map showing the future street changes I was referencing:
...And some changes to south campus I didn't notice. They're going to connect Crescent Rd and Recycling Dr plus add an access rd off of Mt Hope. They will also build a proper road looping around the medical campus while adding access roads to Mt Hope and Hagadorn.
It looks like they'r going to make that section of South Shaw a two way road as far as I can tell. It seems as though they're doing this in an effort to make a more contiguous greenspace out of the Shaw parking lots.
If they're going to rework the commuter and staff parking into greenspace, they could just be planning on expanding Shaw in that section to a 3-4 lane road. The merge in front of Shaw by the planetarium is pretty weird though.
I hope they don't create a 3-4 lane road. The 20/20 plan is about making the campus easier for pedestrians and bicyclists and that would be the wrong direction.
It looks like Crescent will connect to the Commuter Lot (Lot 89) and not Recycling Dr, which is on the other side of the train tracks. It's still kind of weird though because it will go through the Ag Expo site. I'm happy to see the entrance to the Clinical Center area off Mount Hope. That will be nice.
I agree that the plan to eliminate N Shaw doesn't look like a very well thought out idea. I think the newly designated greenspace would be just as beneficial if they allow Shaw to remain as is, no need to make it continuous. To me the big deal here is the elimination of the Shaw surface parking, I'm very interested to see what they do with that space.
I'm also curious what they'll do with the land between the rerouted Red Cedar Rd and the river. I assume they'll leave it parking or possibly greenspace in the near term, but it would make for a very prominent building site at some point.
Comments
Cedar Village would have been part of the East Village plan. I'm not sure how actively the City of East Lansing is pursuing that anymore but I'm sure it's still something they'd like to see happen.
Your mentioning of the Business College addition got me thinking about the STEM facilities upgrades that are also in the planning design stage. When I went to look at the master plan I found that the 2016 Master Plan update draft is available: 2016 Master Plan draft
It's not complete being a draft, right now it only includes various maps. The map of various building projects is missing its accompanying list, so it's hard to say how large new building'additions will be or what they'll be used for. The map of street changes has a couple interesting things though. Red Cedar Rd will be rerouted a little south to run closer to Spartan Stadium and IM West. Also, it looks as though they'll be closing North Shaw between Science Rd and Red Cedar, and eliminating all the surface parking along Shaw. Another map shows the parking areas on Shaw becoming protected green space for "program/research." The full master plan should have a lot more details.
In downtown Lansing the AT&T building once was filled with phone switches, but as miniaturization has continued it is no longer necessary to fill the full building with phone switches. Its brutalist architecture can be off-putting, but the building could also find other uses.
In New York City, the Verizon building was built with the same brutalist architecture and is now going through the construction process to add windows as its being converted to office.
...And some changes to south campus I didn't notice. They're going to connect Crescent Rd and Recycling Dr plus add an access rd off of Mt Hope. They will also build a proper road looping around the medical campus while adding access roads to Mt Hope and Hagadorn.
I agree that the plan to eliminate N Shaw doesn't look like a very well thought out idea. I think the newly designated greenspace would be just as beneficial if they allow Shaw to remain as is, no need to make it continuous. To me the big deal here is the elimination of the Shaw surface parking, I'm very interested to see what they do with that space.
I'm also curious what they'll do with the land between the rerouted Red Cedar Rd and the river. I assume they'll leave it parking or possibly greenspace in the near term, but it would make for a very prominent building site at some point.