Not a whole lot of final resolutions for the council to pass next week. The only half-way significant things up for passage are the rezoning for Lesher Place at Oak Park (the one to allow Neogen to reuse an old house for office space) and the NW corner of Cavanaugh and Lowcroft (the one to allow the construction of a duplex in a single-family neighborhood).
Aside from that:
there is a lot of clean-up working concerning the sell of the city Townsend Parking Ramp to Michigan Senate (a public hearing, a TIFA amendment, a deep transfer, and finally its sale)
a setting of a public hearing for the brownfield for Oliver Towers and one for the small business loan for Pablos in REO Town
the approval of an easement for Consumers Energy to run a gas line to the next natural gas plant that will replace the Erickson Station in Delta Township
and finally the selling of the old Miller Road Community Center to the Capital Area Soccer League.
Items that will be introduced next week to start their process include:
the partial rezoning of 601 South MLK to allow for future commercial redevelopment
the rezoning of the old Kmart site on Cedar for warehouse usage
the rezoning of the old Larch Street substation to allow for residential use
the request for a sewer easement for new McLaren Lansing hospital under construction
the revocation of an OPRA from Spartan Internet for the South Holmes School project
and this is a big one, a ten-year contract with Emterra Environmental for the processing of the city's recyclables. The big thing in this is that Emterra would construct a regional processing center somewhere in the area, and the city would get some revenue if it thresholds for delivery and processing are met. Sounds like Emterra's facility will get all residential customer recyclables, but the city reserves the right to pick-up commercial customer recylables or contract with Emterra to do it.
I wonder how large the recycling facility will need to be, there's not a lot of places for something like that within or even near the city. Maybe the old GM land?
I don't think it'd need to be particularly large. The current city facility on South Street isn't huge. I imagine this is going to be bigger, as I think they are also looking to contract with East Lansing. But even in that case, we're not talking the need for a massive piece of land. Even Granger's facility up on Wood Road isn't huge. Though, I guess it really depends on the specifics like how much of the facility will be dedicated to collections and then how much for processing.
It could definitely go at one of the GM sites. And then again, it could go just about anywhere. If they do get a contract with East Lansing, too, I could see them placing it in the Northern Tier maybe near East Lansing's current department of public works facility up on State Road where they currently have drop-off recycling or somewhere near there.
Hough later in life was worried that the towers would be demolished. If that happened, he suggested the bricks be sold to support a charity.
It’s a good idea, but there are no plans to demolish them at this point. I think Hough would be happy about that.
Amy Adamy, spokeswoman for the Lansing Board of Water and Light, said Friday the coal-fired plant is scheduled to be decommissioned by the end of 2020. BWL will look to sell to a developer who wants to keep the towers.
“Those stacks are iconic in the city of Lansing," she said. "We don’t have any plans of removing them."
Ideas that have been floated include turning the 600-foot towers into commercial, restaurant and or residential space.
We knew that Eckert was being phased out, and that they were looking for someone to redevelop the building. But it's not until today that we get this new information that the BWL is looking for a developer who'd keep the chimneys. It's actually something I'd never even considered, because aside from keeping them simply as historic landmarks, there is really not much else you could use them for, I'd imagine. They may be wide enough lower on their structures to support some elevators that could lead to a observation level. But I don't see how they could be wide enough all the way up to be reusable for anything, which is why I think that maybe they haven't actually even thought about this deeply enough to realize you're not going to use them for anything like apartments or offices?
Anyway, I'm always happy when the BWL thinks about reuse instead of demolition.
Recently, in the last couple months, I've been hearing murmurings of what will happen with the stacks when the plant is decommissioned. To back up the article, I have heard NO ONE talk about removing them. I have heard of some kind of zip line attraction, turning them into an art installation, doing some buildout on them, maybe a combination.
It's funny, I've seen a lot of comments on Social Media regarding the new logo and how it's odd to use CO2 smokestacks as our logo. I can see that, but imagine in 10 years how prescient that logo will look if we get these stacks right? If for no other reason, that new logo is a pretty strong indicator that the Eckert smokestacks are going to have a MAJOR second life. I can't wait to see what it is.
As an interim thing, the towers should be lit up at night with subtle color tones - purple for breast-cancer awareness month, green-and-white for big game days, etc.
I like the capitol, but I never really see it as a Lansing icon, more of a state. I know it's on our seal and all, but it's never really been much of a reflection on who we are as a city to me.
Smokestacks are 615' per wikipedia. I had never known, but your comment prompted me to check it out.
Comments
https://develop.metrolansing.com/discussions/discussion/127/red-cedar-renaissance#latest
Not a whole lot of final resolutions for the council to pass next week. The only half-way significant things up for passage are the rezoning for Lesher Place at Oak Park (the one to allow Neogen to reuse an old house for office space) and the NW corner of Cavanaugh and Lowcroft (the one to allow the construction of a duplex in a single-family neighborhood).
Aside from that:
Items that will be introduced next week to start their process include:
I wonder how large the recycling facility will need to be, there's not a lot of places for something like that within or even near the city. Maybe the old GM land?
I don't think it'd need to be particularly large. The current city facility on South Street isn't huge. I imagine this is going to be bigger, as I think they are also looking to contract with East Lansing. But even in that case, we're not talking the need for a massive piece of land. Even Granger's facility up on Wood Road isn't huge. Though, I guess it really depends on the specifics like how much of the facility will be dedicated to collections and then how much for processing.
It could definitely go at one of the GM sites. And then again, it could go just about anywhere. If they do get a contract with East Lansing, too, I could see them placing it in the Northern Tier maybe near East Lansing's current department of public works facility up on State Road where they currently have drop-off recycling or somewhere near there.
The LSJ inadvertently dropped a little news about the future of Eckert Station, today:
We knew that Eckert was being phased out, and that they were looking for someone to redevelop the building. But it's not until today that we get this new information that the BWL is looking for a developer who'd keep the chimneys. It's actually something I'd never even considered, because aside from keeping them simply as historic landmarks, there is really not much else you could use them for, I'd imagine. They may be wide enough lower on their structures to support some elevators that could lead to a observation level. But I don't see how they could be wide enough all the way up to be reusable for anything, which is why I think that maybe they haven't actually even thought about this deeply enough to realize you're not going to use them for anything like apartments or offices?
Anyway, I'm always happy when the BWL thinks about reuse instead of demolition.
Recently, in the last couple months, I've been hearing murmurings of what will happen with the stacks when the plant is decommissioned. To back up the article, I have heard NO ONE talk about removing them. I have heard of some kind of zip line attraction, turning them into an art installation, doing some buildout on them, maybe a combination.
It's funny, I've seen a lot of comments on Social Media regarding the new logo and how it's odd to use CO2 smokestacks as our logo. I can see that, but imagine in 10 years how prescient that logo will look if we get these stacks right? If for no other reason, that new logo is a pretty strong indicator that the Eckert smokestacks are going to have a MAJOR second life. I can't wait to see what it is.
All the ideas floated above sound amazing.
St. Louis has it's arch. We have our 1,000'-high smokestacks.
(......but we also have a beautiful capital building and one of the best skyscrapers in the midwest in the Boji Tower!!!)
As an interim thing, the towers should be lit up at night with subtle color tones - purple for breast-cancer awareness month, green-and-white for big game days, etc.
I like the capitol, but I never really see it as a Lansing icon, more of a state. I know it's on our seal and all, but it's never really been much of a reflection on who we are as a city to me.
Smokestacks are 615' per wikipedia. I had never known, but your comment prompted me to check it out.
615' Dang! That's pretty impressive. Thanks for fact-checking
(they still feel like 1,300')