After I wrote that, I fired a letter off to a councilmember about this. It's really time the city starts at least pretending to enforce development agreements after all this city gives away to these developers. It's really the least the city should be doing. I'd hate to see this turn into another 7-Block.
I went by here tonight and saw the parking lot. They have signs up for permit parking and curiously enough, the back part of the parking lot looks like it was created out of former cement walls. The cement walls still have Grand Avenue green street signs cemented in them.
Wow, that's terrible. lol It sounds like they didn't excavate anything, rather flattened the ruble on site to make a parking lot and paved over the front part. Sad. I almost inspected it, myself, when I passed, yesterday, but my bike tire had blown out and I was way too tired. Just trying to make it back home.
Let's not make too much of this too soon. There always was permit parking around the City Club. Now, with the building gone, there are just shy of 20 spaces within its footprint, which now is paved with asphalt.
On the very back corner of the site, where a ramp once led up into the South Grand parking structure, it looks like they reused some of the concrete panels that once hung on the exterior of the structure to provide a solid surface and fill in that hole. They recycled materials on site instead of pouring new concrete or asphalt for what's supposed to be a temporary parking lot. Is that so bad?
It's easy to get frustrated about any number of projects not happening right now. Some developers are at fault for some of that. But the implosion of the financial markets led banks to stop lending money to anybody. Hence, Accident Fund is struggling to finance a new parking ramp and Troppo had to go seek out alternative funds when a bank loan was pulled.
In the case of this project - from a purely financial standpoint - it's easy for me to see why the developers would want to get some revenue out of the City Club site to keep paying the bills while we all wait for the credit markets to thaw. If having 20 more surface lot spaces downtown helps these guys wait out the credit crunch and keep a project there alive, then more power to them. We can break out the pitchforks and torches later.
In the case of this project - from a purely financial standpoint - it's easy for me to see why the developers would want to get some revenue out of the City Club site to keep paying the bills while we all wait for the credit markets to thaw. If having 20 more surface lot spaces downtown helps these guys wait out the credit crunch and keep a project there alive, then more power to them. We can break out the pitchforks and torches later.
I'd be more magnanimous if we weren't two years past the announcement of the project. This city has bent over backwards for the developer, giving them every kind of tax break and incentive they could offer under the sun, and on a prime spot on the riverfront, no less. Pardon being skeptical when the developers, then, tore down the City Club (circa 1865) not to start construction on the tower, which would be an equitable trade, but to pave the spot over for a surface lot, and a poorly-constructed/roughshodden one, at that. Lansing too often settles for second-best projects, if they even happen at all, and developers who come in with kind words but who very quickly forget the defintion of being socially responsible.
To whom much is given, much is expected. We gave them the moon for a good project; Lansing has kept up its end of the bargain, in then some. The economy can only be used to a certain degree. Grooters just got through putting up a +400-foot luxury residential tower in Grand Rapids in an equally tough economy. Seems to me that this is a case of the economy coupled with new-to-the-game high-rise developers who may have been off more than they can chew. Perhaps, Grooters needs to be invited to take up a bigger piece of ownership of this and allow the other two to slip out.
You know, it's not asking too much at all, for them to at least build the foundation for the tower to show they are committed to the project. It's something that should have been done, long ago, in fact. I just hope they knock down the neighboring Goodrich to install more parking under the guise of it being 'temporary'. The LSJ article on the knocking down of the City Club was written as if they were starting prep work. Nowhere was it mentioned that they were knocking it down for a parking lot. That's really shady dealing with a supportive public that's given this project a lot of breaks and excuses.
Shawn Elliott is a very optimistic guy, but I think he's been pretty straightforward about the current status of the tower.
From the State Journal's article about the demolition:
But it might be some time before the project rises from the rubble. Developer Shawn Elliott's planned Capitol Club Tower - consisting of 12 stories and a mezzanine - is on hold as he waits for financing.
"With the current banking environment, it's still going to be some time before we can get that going," Elliott said Wednesday as the City Club came down. "However, we're trying to make all steps of progress we can make, and this is one of those steps."
I would be carefull citing the +400-foot tower in GR as a sucess. My mother is in the GR tv news area and made a comment a couple weeks ago that there was a story on TV13 that the tower is virtually empty and is struggling severely. From my understanding, it went up only because the financing was secured before the collapse of the banking system the same way that Ford avoided government loans because they refinanced and got a few billion in loans before the collapse...not simply because Ford was doing that much better.
I'm torn because MM has some very good points in terms of getting developers to stick to commitments considering how much the city has given them; but on the other side I think one must recognize the severity of not just the economy, but in development cases the issue is more about the lack of lending. I recently looked into buying one of the Washington Square Place condos, but the PMI insurance companies won't ensure new condo developments so to buy into a new condo development you have to have 20% to put down. This greatly reduces the pool of potential buyers, especially younger buyers, and makes it even more difficult to get loans to build them. And this is very new issue, 5 months ago when I first got approved by my bank gave me 5% down for these places but when I went to actually make a formal offer a month ago that bank offer was gone, now I'd need 20% down.
Given all that, I tend to be a little more forgiving towards developers in regards to timelines. HOWEVER, alot of the ideas about development requirements, and enforcing them, I would totally support those that have been mentioned here once the credit markets free back up.
There is continued work on the Capitol Club parking garage, it is starting to look nice...was rennovating the parking garage a contractual requirement for buying it? If it was, not too exciting...if it wasn't, then it's a good sign that Elliot is still seriouslly pursuing the Tower. I mean, unless he's required to fix the garage, what benefit would there be in putting money into the garage unless it would make the Tower look bad.
Comments
On the very back corner of the site, where a ramp once led up into the South Grand parking structure, it looks like they reused some of the concrete panels that once hung on the exterior of the structure to provide a solid surface and fill in that hole. They recycled materials on site instead of pouring new concrete or asphalt for what's supposed to be a temporary parking lot. Is that so bad?
It's easy to get frustrated about any number of projects not happening right now. Some developers are at fault for some of that. But the implosion of the financial markets led banks to stop lending money to anybody. Hence, Accident Fund is struggling to finance a new parking ramp and Troppo had to go seek out alternative funds when a bank loan was pulled.
In the case of this project - from a purely financial standpoint - it's easy for me to see why the developers would want to get some revenue out of the City Club site to keep paying the bills while we all wait for the credit markets to thaw. If having 20 more surface lot spaces downtown helps these guys wait out the credit crunch and keep a project there alive, then more power to them. We can break out the pitchforks and torches later.
These photos are from today:
I'd be more magnanimous if we weren't two years past the announcement of the project. This city has bent over backwards for the developer, giving them every kind of tax break and incentive they could offer under the sun, and on a prime spot on the riverfront, no less. Pardon being skeptical when the developers, then, tore down the City Club (circa 1865) not to start construction on the tower, which would be an equitable trade, but to pave the spot over for a surface lot, and a poorly-constructed/roughshodden one, at that. Lansing too often settles for second-best projects, if they even happen at all, and developers who come in with kind words but who very quickly forget the defintion of being socially responsible.
To whom much is given, much is expected. We gave them the moon for a good project; Lansing has kept up its end of the bargain, in then some. The economy can only be used to a certain degree. Grooters just got through putting up a +400-foot luxury residential tower in Grand Rapids in an equally tough economy. Seems to me that this is a case of the economy coupled with new-to-the-game high-rise developers who may have been off more than they can chew. Perhaps, Grooters needs to be invited to take up a bigger piece of ownership of this and allow the other two to slip out.
You know, it's not asking too much at all, for them to at least build the foundation for the tower to show they are committed to the project. It's something that should have been done, long ago, in fact. I just hope they knock down the neighboring Goodrich to install more parking under the guise of it being 'temporary'. The LSJ article on the knocking down of the City Club was written as if they were starting prep work. Nowhere was it mentioned that they were knocking it down for a parking lot. That's really shady dealing with a supportive public that's given this project a lot of breaks and excuses.
From the State Journal's article about the demolition:
I'm torn because MM has some very good points in terms of getting developers to stick to commitments considering how much the city has given them; but on the other side I think one must recognize the severity of not just the economy, but in development cases the issue is more about the lack of lending. I recently looked into buying one of the Washington Square Place condos, but the PMI insurance companies won't ensure new condo developments so to buy into a new condo development you have to have 20% to put down. This greatly reduces the pool of potential buyers, especially younger buyers, and makes it even more difficult to get loans to build them. And this is very new issue, 5 months ago when I first got approved by my bank gave me 5% down for these places but when I went to actually make a formal offer a month ago that bank offer was gone, now I'd need 20% down.
Given all that, I tend to be a little more forgiving towards developers in regards to timelines. HOWEVER, alot of the ideas about development requirements, and enforcing them, I would totally support those that have been mentioned here once the credit markets free back up.