Red Cedar Renaissance

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Comments

  • Good News! This is going to be truly unique and hopefully beautiful part of our urban landscape. I don't believe I have seen anything like this development in the middle of a city anywhere.
  • edited February 2020
    A bit more detail. Looks like the state didn't like the focus on student housing, so the brownfield plan is being rewritten to make the developers eat the cost of developing the student housing, it sounds like: https://www.lansingcitypulse.com/stories/developers-to-revise-plans-for-red-cedar-development,13839
    WEDNESDAY, Feb. 12 — Developers of the former Red Cedar Golf Course are pushing forward with construction plans after the Michigan Economic Development Corp. objected to a request to help fund the $250 million superdevelopment.

    Lansing Mayor Andy Schor said the development team at Continental-Ferguson LLC — spearheaded by developers Joel Ferguson of Lansing and Frank Kass of Columbus, Ohio — will resubmit plans for tax incentives this week so as to “minimize” any reliance on state taxes that directly support student housing.
    “I think we solved it. I think we’re good to go. We’re finding common ground. We’re all on the same page,” Ferguson said, declining to elaborate on his dealings with the MEDC. “Downsize? Hell no. We’re still going to be a gamechanger. We’re good to go. Everyone will be happy. The mayor will be happy. Lansing will be happy.”
    Alterations to the development plans will not require additional approval from City Council, Schor noted.

    Hey, the less the public subsidy the better, IMO, so long as it still turns out not too much off what was planned. I'm actually quite glad to see increasingly - and across the political and ideological spectrum - public bodies making developers prove the need when they request things like tax credits and such. That the developers in this case seem adamant that this won't change the plans much shows that the game for them is asking for more than what they need so they'll have to invest less of their own money and can thus recoup their money more quickly. That's not to say I'm against the concept of these credits like some people are, but it's good to see cities demanding a bit more bang for their buck. Given the apparent high ROI on student housing, maybe it's a good idea for the state not to be subsidizing it, at least not to the degree the developers would like.
  • I drove by this site and found a lot of activity going on, a second elevator tower is going up on the eastern side of the project.
    I also like that the state is looking more closely at the subsidies they grant. This location, in particular, may not have ever been developed without government help. I guess that it is not wrong to try and see how much they can get, but I think they should honest about their plans and their financial needs. Seems like apartments are apartments no matter who is renting them and this division of people and living spaces into categories is not the best way to fund these projects IMO. I guess I would look to the rents they propose charging rather than the identity of the people they renting to. How about Very Affordable[subsidized rent] Affordable [small space low rent] and Market[large space higher rent]. One division I think is really dumb is 55+Active Seniors!
  • Well that was quick.
    LANSING – A revised brownfield plan for the Red Cedar project was resubmitted to the Michigan Economic Development Corp. this week after the original plan was withdrawn, project officials said Wednesday.

    "There (have) been revisions to our application based upon communications with the MEDC," Chris Stralkowski, a project manager for the developer told the State Journal on Wednesday.

    Stralkowski declined to discuss specific changes.
  • There's a website for the project with more renderings, including from the street level. There's also some (already out of date) construction photos.

    https://www.redcedarfacts.com/
  • The first floor of the easternmost building of the project has walls standing. It looks like the same mainly wood construction they have used at other recent projects. It was reassuring to see everything is rolling along and I sure hope it just keeps on rolling.
  • edited March 2020
    I don't understand what the state has against this project:
    LANSING – The Michigan Strategic Fund Board voted Thursday to deny the Red Cedar project its $32-million brownfield plan, although the project can be resubmitted in the future.

    The vote comes weeks after the city of Lansing rescinded and then resubmitted its application for the project after the MSF board indicated that it would deny the initial plan submitted by developers Joel Ferguson and Frank Kass.

    Impact on the $250 million project, which is under construction near Lansing's border with East Lansing, was not immediately clear.
    Thursday's denial was passed with an 8-to-2 vote, with one abstention by board member Britany Affolter-Caine.

    When the first request was withdrawn from MSF consideration in February, state officials said the proposal, which includes some student housing, did not meet the Strategic Fund's key goals of long-term net economic benefit, greater access to low-income or affordable housing and stimulating development in core downtown areas.
  • edited March 2020
    Update:
    Michele Wildman, senior vice president of community development for the MEDC, outlined the organization's three main issues with the proposal.

    "The project developer is proposing to build a variety of pads to sell to related entities, leaving some ambiguity as to the future development that's to occur on the site," Wildman said.

    "It's difficult for us to evaluate the ability of this project to attract talent, provide access to necessary housing or create long term net economic benefits, which is the overall goal of the program and how we evaluate these requests when they when they come in."

    Wildman continued on, saying that the project proposal did not prove that it would be economically beneficial to the region at-large.

    "When we're considering state support, we consider the impact on both the city as well as the region and we'd be looking for a case to be made that we'd be benefiting the region overall and not simply pulling customers from neighboring municipalities," she said.

    Lastly, Wildman said the MEDC had difficulty identifying the "developer's rate of return on investment as well as the project's financial need."

    "The first proposal to the MEDC was not correct," Bob Trezise, LEAP president and CEO said Thursday during the public comment portion of the meeting. "This one is ... This project is more than shovel ready, shovel is in the ground."

    I honestly still don't understand what they are going on about. I've seen them give money to far more dubious projects. And what makes this even more silly is that they had completely different reasons for rejecting the funding, last month, despite the resubmitted proposal not being all that different than the one they initially rejected. They are just bound and determined not to invest here. Looks like the developers are either going to have to do this in phases/downsize, or they are going to have to find alternative financing for this last part of the funding.
  • I drove by the site yesterday and there were a lot of people and activity going on. How could they vote like this at this time? I was just feeling relieved when I saw work was still going on. Some very bad bureaucratic decisions have been made in this case. We are building on undeveloped land that was not producing in cent for the community, and all that stuff about attracting talent and pulling costumers from other municipalities, I do not understand what that is supposed to mean. There were going to be housing and hotels and other facilities that would employee hundreds and I believe this would have sparked more development of the East Michigan Avenue/ Frandor area. What are they talking about? I would guess that this messes up the drain project as well:{
  • The reason ""When we're considering state support, we consider the impact on both the city as well as the region and we'd be looking for a case to be made that we'd be benefiting the region overall and not simply pulling customers from neighboring municipalities," she said."
    Is a bit hard to read. So is a project that has any business relocated automatically rejected? This seems to be applied in an unclear way.

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