Southside Lansing Development

191012141520

Comments

  • Typically the reason for leaving one wall standing is for tax purposes. Meijer did that across the street from the new Panera's. If you leave a wall standing, you're taxed at the old building rate as a 'remodel' instead of a 'new build'. I would reckon the same rule applies here.

  • Yeah I was going to say the same. Decisions like that are deliberate lol

  • Thanks that is interesting. Out on the Cape they used to do that for historical structures. Tear down everything but the outside walls and add a lot of bump outs and dormers to make condo spaces out of single-family houses. During the construction, there would be ancient walls exposed and you could pick out the parts of old ships and the King George Boards that came from them which the Colonist would reuse for houses. Those boards were cut at 23 inches no matter how big the tree was so the lumber would escape being taxed and sent to England which they did for all lumber 24 inches or larger. I lived in an 1812 house that had those boards for the floorboards, that house was quite hunted as well. Gotta use those tax loopholes!

  • Wow that is a really interesting story. It's not as deep-reaching historically but when the City Center was being built in East Lansing at the corner of MAC and Grand River an old advertisement for Vernors was uncovered. It was great to see the history that had been hiding and preserved for so many years.
  • Thanks, it was pretty cool to live in such an old house except it was pretty drafty in the winter. This house was what they called a "floated over house" or "Long Point House" at one time part of the town was on Long Point which is at the very tip of the Cape. Around the turn of the 19th century, the sea level had risen and they decided to abandon Long Point and moved the houses on barges across the harbor to the main part of town which is on a much larger piece of land. The Long Point area of town was called "Helltown" as it was isolated and hosted the sailor's bars and brothels out there away from the nice part of town with the churches.
    Did they save the Vernor's sign? There is a really cool one in Flint.

  • I'm pretty sure the Vernor's sign is still in place but covered by the new building. This article gives more background, http://campusarch.msu.edu/?p=4063

  • edited April 2019

    Yeah, it was revealed and then covered back up when they built the City Center I building at the corner of Grand River and MAC. It's on Curious Book Shop (tiny little building to the right):

  • The old Sam's Club has a new owner! And no, it's not another self-storage, thankfully!
    https://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/news/2019/04/26/sams-club-lansing-owner-outdoor-store/3572060002/

  • No More Self-Storage! I have been disappointed to see that the renovation of the former Holiday Inn [may not be done] into self-storage units has no improvements to the outside of the building, in fact, it looks worse.
    The new business in Edgewood sounds like fun.

  • So, the council is going to take up the rezoning of the old Kmart on South Cedar, Monday. It's likely to pass, but what caught my attention in the council packet is a letter by Gentilozzi Real Estate which mentions a building down that way I had no idea had been built.

    Apparently, in December Gentilozzi began building a near-23,000 sq ft for the State of Michigan at 5217 Perry Robinson Circle immediately north of the Kmart. This had been an old woodlot for as long as I can remember. Apparently, it's for the Unemployment Insurance Agency (UIA) who moved in in May from their previous location just a block away at the northeast corner of Jolly and Cedar.

    Nothing special, just kind of shows the construction going on you sometimes don't see.

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