Also, did you ever find out the name of the contractors working on the Hub? I believe their name is "Strample" or something similar - again, it is on a large sign across the street from the construction.
It seems unlikely, but maybe there could be a Greater Lansing Authority with all the big and little municipalities represented. The Authority would oversee regional resources, parks, and trails, transit, airports, roads and take up planning for development. Perhaps this would help focus on issues as a region instead of a dozen different smaller myopic communities that seem to think they are islands, not surrounded by a larger overall community. County government does take on some of these issues without stepping on the local official's toes. A good example of these artificial boundaries is on Michigan Ave. in the very center of our true city is a line where the new pavement ends and where Lansing Township begins and that is where huge potholes again open, just down the street is the City of Lansing again. It's just not logical if there was a coordinated effort the Township could have had their funds lined up with Lansing and East Lansing, etc. to pave this important street from the Capitol to Okemos. Just dreaming!
The LSJ ran a story yesterday about the various construction projects in East Lansing (they included Park District even though there is no current proposal).
The four developments they covered are Park District, Center City, 565 E. Grand River Avenue, and The Hub.
Most notable item I saw was:
The Target should be operational by the spring of 2019. The parking garage should be accessible around the same time, he said. The entire project should be finished in August 2019, Dempsey said.
I wonder if the time has come to open up Park District to smaller scale developments. After 15 years it looks like the market just doesn't want to build up that site the way East Lansing wants. The more I think about it, while Abbot and Grand River may appear to be a logical center point for downtown, in reality it seems like the main axis of downtown has shifted to the east over the years. Really Park District is almost more on the outskirts of the modern downtown than in the heart. It immediately dies off to the west.
The main reason it dies off is due to the absence of life there for 15 years. There used to be a lot of businesses in that Thai Hut block, and you can see how that extends towards Crunchy's etc. Building something at Park District has the potential to reconnect the western end of downtown East Lansing.
From east to west 20 years ago there was:
1. a large office building at Abbot and Grand River,
2. a Subway restaurant
3. a pizza buffet restaurant with student apartments above
4. a couple small businesses (I believe)
5. People's Church
6. 7-11 (Jonna's To Go is there now)
7. a McDonald's Express (now the parking lot for People's Church)
8. a car wash (still there)
9. Crunchy's (still there)
10. Biggby's (still there)
11. a Chinese restaurant (I think the name may have been "happy day" or ended with "sun")
12. and a Greyhound station (now 300 Grand apartments with vacant ground floor retail)
Building Park District has the potential to bring people further west which may provide the necessary foot traffic to fill in the vacancies at 300 Grand. If the proposed residential addition to the car wash ever gets re-proposed and accepted, as well as if a development goes in on the People's Church parking lot we could see a very different East Lansing than today
East Lansing officials still seem confident that another proposal for Park District is imminent and I don't have any reason to doubt them. They've made it sound like Evergreen Ave may essentially stay in place making for at least two separate buildings facing Grand River. There's the real potential for this to become a positive.
As for the state of Abbot/Grand River area I agree with the others in that it's been doing well besides the Park District property. I will say that the thing I most hope for in downtown EL is an impressive high-rise at the Michigan/Grand River triangle. There's good potential for downtown EL to expand to essentially fill the Michigan/GR/Harrison block; probably with residential low & mid rises on the interior and mixed use buildings fronting the main streets on the perimeter.
Well I'm still waiting to hear about the new plans for the park district from the city or the developers... trying to be patient!
Once the Park District is done, I'll be curious to see how the remaining "West Downtown" develops. Besides the PC parking lot, and the small buildings along GR, the delta itself has considerable potential (and updated zoning, if I recall correctly) for upsizing basically all the way to Beal St. Currently there are only ~2 large apartment buildings that are close to the max size allowed by the new EL zoning scheme.
Comments
Also, did you ever find out the name of the contractors working on the Hub? I believe their name is "Strample" or something similar - again, it is on a large sign across the street from the construction.
Spence Brothers, not Strample... I see from the Hub thread that you also got this info from the city.
It seems unlikely, but maybe there could be a Greater Lansing Authority with all the big and little municipalities represented. The Authority would oversee regional resources, parks, and trails, transit, airports, roads and take up planning for development. Perhaps this would help focus on issues as a region instead of a dozen different smaller myopic communities that seem to think they are islands, not surrounded by a larger overall community. County government does take on some of these issues without stepping on the local official's toes. A good example of these artificial boundaries is on Michigan Ave. in the very center of our true city is a line where the new pavement ends and where Lansing Township begins and that is where huge potholes again open, just down the street is the City of Lansing again. It's just not logical if there was a coordinated effort the Township could have had their funds lined up with Lansing and East Lansing, etc. to pave this important street from the Capitol to Okemos. Just dreaming!
The LSJ ran a story yesterday about the various construction projects in East Lansing (they included Park District even though there is no current proposal).
https://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/news/2018/04/05/4-developments-watch-downtown-east-lansing/479839002/
The four developments they covered are Park District, Center City, 565 E. Grand River Avenue, and The Hub.
Most notable item I saw was:
I wonder if the time has come to open up Park District to smaller scale developments. After 15 years it looks like the market just doesn't want to build up that site the way East Lansing wants. The more I think about it, while Abbot and Grand River may appear to be a logical center point for downtown, in reality it seems like the main axis of downtown has shifted to the east over the years. Really Park District is almost more on the outskirts of the modern downtown than in the heart. It immediately dies off to the west.
The main reason it dies off is due to the absence of life there for 15 years. There used to be a lot of businesses in that Thai Hut block, and you can see how that extends towards Crunchy's etc. Building something at Park District has the potential to reconnect the western end of downtown East Lansing.
From east to west 20 years ago there was:
1. a large office building at Abbot and Grand River,
2. a Subway restaurant
3. a pizza buffet restaurant with student apartments above
4. a couple small businesses (I believe)
5. People's Church
6. 7-11 (Jonna's To Go is there now)
7. a McDonald's Express (now the parking lot for People's Church)
8. a car wash (still there)
9. Crunchy's (still there)
10. Biggby's (still there)
11. a Chinese restaurant (I think the name may have been "happy day" or ended with "sun")
12. and a Greyhound station (now 300 Grand apartments with vacant ground floor retail)
Building Park District has the potential to bring people further west which may provide the necessary foot traffic to fill in the vacancies at 300 Grand. If the proposed residential addition to the car wash ever gets re-proposed and accepted, as well as if a development goes in on the People's Church parking lot we could see a very different East Lansing than today
East Lansing officials still seem confident that another proposal for Park District is imminent and I don't have any reason to doubt them. They've made it sound like Evergreen Ave may essentially stay in place making for at least two separate buildings facing Grand River. There's the real potential for this to become a positive.
As for the state of Abbot/Grand River area I agree with the others in that it's been doing well besides the Park District property. I will say that the thing I most hope for in downtown EL is an impressive high-rise at the Michigan/Grand River triangle. There's good potential for downtown EL to expand to essentially fill the Michigan/GR/Harrison block; probably with residential low & mid rises on the interior and mixed use buildings fronting the main streets on the perimeter.
Well I'm still waiting to hear about the new plans for the park district from the city or the developers... trying to be patient!
Once the Park District is done, I'll be curious to see how the remaining "West Downtown" develops. Besides the PC parking lot, and the small buildings along GR, the delta itself has considerable potential (and updated zoning, if I recall correctly) for upsizing basically all the way to Beal St. Currently there are only ~2 large apartment buildings that are close to the max size allowed by the new EL zoning scheme.
Whatever happened to that proposed development next to the B&B on Albert, near 525 and 533? I haven't heard anything about that for a while...