Yes, on the open lot immediately north of Roma. As for the second item, I think you're talking about the two-way conversion for downtown streets? They were working on that today when I was down there.
Board of Zoning Appeals packet for this weeks shows a major variance being requested for a project. Developers are looking to build a 10-story, 135 feet tall building at the northeast corner of Grand River Avenue & the Grand River a block from the Turner Dodge House where only 5 stories and 75 feet are allowed. Kind of shocking location for a high-rise. the building is proposed to include 168 residential units, 17,400 sq ft of commercial space. They say if they do not get the variance, the project will not go forward. The Planning Office is recommending approval of the variance.
BTW, the 10th floor is a semi-enclosed area of the roof.
Looks pretty good. I have not been by this area in a while, I believe the bridge renovation is, or near complete, just that alone improves the neighborhood. Now it looks like a great location for a high rise.
That seems like a very odd location for something that size and also very out of place, in my opinion. I'd much rather see something like that more towards the downtown core...
I'm all for this, this is an almost completely dead area right now. When I've stared at satellite images trying to discern where future development might make sense this stretch of N Grand River/Willow along the river is one of the spots I've thought of, albeit not with something quite like this in mind. There's open land across the street/along the river and two industrial buildings that are ripe for development along with the Willow Plaza property and the two small commercial buildings at the corner of Willow; I'd also argue the vast majority of houses In between Willow, Caesar Chavez and the Grand River can probably go to provide land for more dense development. I find it mildly hard to believe that they'll pull this off but it would be great to see.
My point is that although this building may seem a bit much for this area, it doesn't impose on any neighborhood, is close to Old Town and is on the river. It will provide a fantastic opportunity to show what's possible here hopefully drawing more development in this direction, essentially forming the future northern end of downtown. It'd be foolish of the city to resist a high rise riverfront apartment building near Old Town built on the site of a completely unremarkable vacant industrial building. I don't think I could ask for a much more potentially beneficial mid-market apartment building.
@Lymon89 I 100% understand your sentiment, and I think I would have agreed not all that long ago, but the fact is that nobody is proposing anything like this downtown right now and I don't think it has to be an either/or proposition. I'm betting the downtown-proper projects will come but building up the periphery can only strengthen any momentum downtown manages to gain and make it look better to the outsiders who are often making the financing decisions.
...On another note I was looking at the planning commission agendas hoping to find more info on the above building (no luck) and among other projects jumping through the tax incentive process the Hillsdale & MLK project is there with the same site plan and a rendering of what appears to be two floor lap-sided townhouses that will face inward towards the parking lot. They're asking for a PILOT and I'm not in favor, imo if people want tax incentives they have to bring something to the table that benefits the city and the neighborhood. This project will almost certainly prove detrimental to the neighborhood and to the already dim prospects of quality residential & commercial development on the western edge of downtown.
Weird; the meeting has been cancelled and the packet removed. Did I ruin this? lol
This was the first time for this project to be seen. They weren't asking for a rezoning or anything like that, so there was no other reason for it to have come up in board/commission meetings.
@MichMatters I guess we'll have to wait and see. I missed that you said board of zoning appeals at first, I see an ethics board meeting canceled as well so I wouldn't make too much of it. The rendering looks well done and specific to that site so I tend to think whoever is involved is serious.
BTW, the council voted to put the Lansing Township annexation on the November ballot, tonight. Lots of good questions asked, and the mayor came with info. Saw WLNS reported incorrectly on the debt the city would take on; it's $6 million of the total $32 for the township, not the whole $32 million. Lansing would make that back in less then 5 years with the most conservative estimates on tax revenue the city would take in from the area. As expected, that debt would be spread across the city and not tacced on to the annexed territory's tax bills as a special assessment, which would certainly doom the proposal.
No comes the hard part. Some interviews I've seen of twp residents in the City Pulse seems to show an ignorance among some of them that special assessments are taxes by another name. Truth is, that more and more of these will keep being put on township residents to the point that very soon, their taxes will equal Lansing's, anyway, but without the services that Lansing offers. This is really about them taking themselves out of harms way early while they still have options then waiting for everything to collapse, in which case they'd be at the mercy of the state and might be forced into annexation, anyway. The mayor is seemingly taking a hands-off approach. I'd be pretty aggressively campaigning for this to clear up misinformation that will come from the township.
Something else I found pitiful, tonight, was your typical negative Lansing residents trying to paint this as some kind of loss for Lansing. It's the same ole, same old gadflies. I'm glad the councillers saw through this and unanimously adopted the resolution to place this on the ballot.
I'm happy with that annexation proposal, taking on those taxes shouldn't prove a big deal to the city and will hopefully be enticing enough to get township residents to vote in favor of it.
I haven't seen any case studies as to how exactly this will affect their taxes, not how it will immediately effect them post-annexation and no projections for what a worst case or even realistic best case scenario of how the township's tax situation might look like over the next 10 years or so if they stay. These township residents have a big decision to make, I just hope they have good information to make that decision off of and that they at least give a passing thought to the long term future of their neighborhood and the metro area as a whole.
Comments
BTW, the 10th floor is a semi-enclosed area of the roof.
My point is that although this building may seem a bit much for this area, it doesn't impose on any neighborhood, is close to Old Town and is on the river. It will provide a fantastic opportunity to show what's possible here hopefully drawing more development in this direction, essentially forming the future northern end of downtown. It'd be foolish of the city to resist a high rise riverfront apartment building near Old Town built on the site of a completely unremarkable vacant industrial building. I don't think I could ask for a much more potentially beneficial mid-market apartment building.
@Lymon89 I 100% understand your sentiment, and I think I would have agreed not all that long ago, but the fact is that nobody is proposing anything like this downtown right now and I don't think it has to be an either/or proposition. I'm betting the downtown-proper projects will come but building up the periphery can only strengthen any momentum downtown manages to gain and make it look better to the outsiders who are often making the financing decisions.
...On another note I was looking at the planning commission agendas hoping to find more info on the above building (no luck) and among other projects jumping through the tax incentive process the Hillsdale & MLK project is there with the same site plan and a rendering of what appears to be two floor lap-sided townhouses that will face inward towards the parking lot. They're asking for a PILOT and I'm not in favor, imo if people want tax incentives they have to bring something to the table that benefits the city and the neighborhood. This project will almost certainly prove detrimental to the neighborhood and to the already dim prospects of quality residential & commercial development on the western edge of downtown.
This was the first time for this project to be seen. They weren't asking for a rezoning or anything like that, so there was no other reason for it to have come up in board/commission meetings.
No comes the hard part. Some interviews I've seen of twp residents in the City Pulse seems to show an ignorance among some of them that special assessments are taxes by another name. Truth is, that more and more of these will keep being put on township residents to the point that very soon, their taxes will equal Lansing's, anyway, but without the services that Lansing offers. This is really about them taking themselves out of harms way early while they still have options then waiting for everything to collapse, in which case they'd be at the mercy of the state and might be forced into annexation, anyway. The mayor is seemingly taking a hands-off approach. I'd be pretty aggressively campaigning for this to clear up misinformation that will come from the township.
Something else I found pitiful, tonight, was your typical negative Lansing residents trying to paint this as some kind of loss for Lansing. It's the same ole, same old gadflies. I'm glad the councillers saw through this and unanimously adopted the resolution to place this on the ballot.
I haven't seen any case studies as to how exactly this will affect their taxes, not how it will immediately effect them post-annexation and no projections for what a worst case or even realistic best case scenario of how the township's tax situation might look like over the next 10 years or so if they stay. These township residents have a big decision to make, I just hope they have good information to make that decision off of and that they at least give a passing thought to the long term future of their neighborhood and the metro area as a whole.