A press release today regarding the Stadium District says that the last piece of steel has been added and five condos have been sold already. It also said that half of the retail space had been leased to the Lansing Regional Chamber of Commerce, Briarwood Realty, and 5/3 Bank.
Yep, I read it, and thought the title was a big misleading making it sound as if all of the condos had been sold. They still have twenty more to go. lol And, the retail that they mention has been chosen for months, now, I believe. I guess it was just a slow news day.
The most interesting commercial tennants have not officially been announced yet (im not sure if their leases are finalized,) there is supposed to be a "wine bar" and another "trendy" type bar and of course, a coffee shop.
I was looking at all of the space behind the Stadium District, today, and was thinking that if this takes off it would be really cool to see Mr. Gillespie eventually build a full tower behind the Stadium District. In fact, since they need the parking they could just stick it atop a parking garage, which would be largely hidden behind the stadium district with the tower extending above. Either that, or they could develop one of those automated garages that take up a very small footprint.
The only thing about the space behind the Stadium District is that they have to leave a reasonable amount of space so that people arent looking directly out at a parking garage or into someone elses window. But the city definately needs to build a sizable parking ramp around Oldsmobile park in the very near future. In fact I think they should have done it awhile ago, and as the surface lots are developed they are going to be forced to do it.
Plenty of condos have views into unpleasent things or into other buildings. Otherwise, we have underutilized land. Leaving that as surface parking isn't going to be an option, down the road. This is not to mention for the people on the second (and maybe even the third floor) floor, already, have an unflattering view of their surface parking lot and a hill-hiding-water tanks, and that the original plan had called for a small parking garage on part of the site, anyway. Again, this is down the road, but land values trump views, and in real cities, views are lost all of the time. Views in the back of the Stadium District, even at the present moment, aren't the selling point of those units, anyway, so it's not like much of anything would be lost.
I wonder if this Stadium District project has stalled out a bit. I was in EL this past weekend to see "Wicked" and my girlfriend and I went downtown to see the development after eating at Emil's. It really doesn't look any different than the pictures LMich posted at the beginning of the month. Hope they get going on that project before students start coming down for Thirsty Thursdays in August so that they might have something more final to look at.
They are working just as hard as ever, and I really couldn't care less about how it looks on the outside at the moment, and I don't imagine many people do, either. Were you just kind of joking?
I'm not saying that it looks like some sort of atrocity at this point, and that it's ugliness burns my retinas. Just that students who come downtown once MSU starts back up may not realize what exactly it is right away, and that it would leave much more of an impression on those students if they had something a little more final to eye.
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I was looking at all of the space behind the Stadium District, today, and was thinking that if this takes off it would be really cool to see Mr. Gillespie eventually build a full tower behind the Stadium District. In fact, since they need the parking they could just stick it atop a parking garage, which would be largely hidden behind the stadium district with the tower extending above. Either that, or they could develop one of those automated garages that take up a very small footprint.