That is good news. Sometimes it seems like these promised projects will never actually start. I am hoping this renovation will be at least as nice as the Homes Street School, which I think looks very nice.
There is an artical in the City Pulse about a plan to build housing and offices for CATA across from the Bus station. The project would include homeless persons services, with housing for them. There would also be low and market rate housing, and some retail space. Sounds like this has already being planned and may happen soon. It says that the strip mall with Baryames Cleaners would remain, OK but why? I have never seen that space fully leased and it is quite unremarkable for a downtown building. It will be good to see some of those empty parking lots developed.
It's great to see more infill, even though it's more unremarkable 5 over 1 architecture I'm still happy to see it. I'm starting to realize how silly it was for me to expect residential high rises back before even the original Stadium District was built, I do think that we may be close to seeing bigger and better things given the amount of housing that's gone up around downtown in the past ten years and the ever decreasing number of vacant/underutilized buildings, it's a very different place now.
I am a little concerned about the project being done by the housing commission though, I have very, very little faith in LHC's ability to competently manage their housing. I'm happy see CATA executives potentially finding a home near the transit center, having more administrative people nearby should help things there. I'm not, however, excited about concentrating more homeless services to the Cherry Hill area, Jimho is about all this small neighborhood can take without really detrimental effects.
I'm starting to realize how silly it was for me to expect residential high rises back before even the original Stadium District was built
I feel you. I remember being so excited and actually thinking that the Capital Club high rise was possible on Grand. Now I just expect the least, and that's pretty much what pans out.
I'll be super vague because I can't say too much on this, but I worked for someone for a short while that had the means and connections to build a 30 story tower in Lansing. They were adamant on it. They regularly met with city leaders. There was a lot of time and effort put into its development. Of course the project would always shrink and end up "work force" housing, but then the guy would read some article swaying them and go full force on the 30 story tower. They wanted the largest tower in Lansing.
That said, that has been in the works for over a decade and I haven't had contact with them for years. Pre-pandemic, they were still hard set on making it happen.
So, there are people out there that want to make a tower happen, but then they realize they can do low income housing and get a decent enough rate on their return. I keep hoping someday we'll get another real tower.
@Lymon89 I'm assuming that was the wealthy investment guy that was from Lansing and had a news story or two about him wanting to building something like that? I do hope he considers moving forward, I think the time is nearing where it isn't completely crazy. If things stay on the current path market forces alone may deliver us something similar in the not too distant future.
I think downtown just wasn't really ready for high or even mid-rises 10 or 15 years ago, even now I think we're just turning the corner now that most large vacant buildings have been remodeled along with seeing things as far afield as Stadium North actually happen and then these new proposals near Kalamazoo & Grand. If the national/global economy holds up I think we'll see a lot of stuff happening in the coming years.
Here is a concept layout. Not getting the Baryames property is a missed opportunity and makes it clunky/hard to integrate into a traditional downtown layout, but Baryames owns it outright and it is prime downtown land so I'm sure if they were contacted, they are asking for top dollar.
Nice to see the site plan, I wasn't expecting the L shape coming out to Kalamazoo. I'm not a fan of the parking along Cherry but it's enough room for another building someday so I can't complain too much. I have no issue with Baryames being left out of the plan as that corner is appropriate for something more than a four floor building, I don't mind waiting it out for something 8, 10 or even 20+ floors.
Any idea how far along this proposal is? Does it seem fairly likely to happen?
@MichMatters The Grand Ave part of this parcel would be undevelopable if they force corner siting as both adjacent corners are on different parcels. They could reorient the building to Cherry & Kalamazoo, which I would like, but then they wouldn't be facing the CATA station which seems like a selling point for this project, and they'd be in the floodplain a bit at that corner. It's definitely an odd site layout.
I'm quite happy the corner parcel isn't part of this plan. Do we really want a very mediocre 4 floor LHC apartment building taking up an important corner downtown for decades given a choice? I wouldn't be up in arms if it were on the corner, but I'm glad there will still be an opportunity to do something nicer and/or taller there someday.
EDIT: The more I look at it the more I think the building should be an L oriented to Cherry & Kalamazoo. That still allows for plenty of parking and makes developing the rest of the site in the future much, much easier.
We wanted it along Kalamazoo and Cherry but they couldn't make the numbers work with the floodplain. FBC has a stipulation to work around natural features and we can make a compromise for additional outdoor seating, bike racks, and rain gardens in the floodplain part of the landscape. It does start to drop off quite a bit past the traffic light, I believe at least 10 feet. The project is dependent on LIHTC, a similar proposal was denied last year, but CATA seems pretty determined to complete a housing project by their station so maybe this has more behind it. The entire point of this proposal though is TOD so we keep trying to encourage less parking. Since this is only preliminary for their application, maybe there is an opportunity to situate it differently with further discussions but if one can't really do much along Kalamazoo, I'm not sure what is better.
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I am a little concerned about the project being done by the housing commission though, I have very, very little faith in LHC's ability to competently manage their housing. I'm happy see CATA executives potentially finding a home near the transit center, having more administrative people nearby should help things there. I'm not, however, excited about concentrating more homeless services to the Cherry Hill area, Jimho is about all this small neighborhood can take without really detrimental effects.
That said, that has been in the works for over a decade and I haven't had contact with them for years. Pre-pandemic, they were still hard set on making it happen.
So, there are people out there that want to make a tower happen, but then they realize they can do low income housing and get a decent enough rate on their return. I keep hoping someday we'll get another real tower.
I think downtown just wasn't really ready for high or even mid-rises 10 or 15 years ago, even now I think we're just turning the corner now that most large vacant buildings have been remodeled along with seeing things as far afield as Stadium North actually happen and then these new proposals near Kalamazoo & Grand. If the national/global economy holds up I think we'll see a lot of stuff happening in the coming years.
Here is a concept layout. Not getting the Baryames property is a missed opportunity and makes it clunky/hard to integrate into a traditional downtown layout, but Baryames owns it outright and it is prime downtown land so I'm sure if they were contacted, they are asking for top dollar.
Any idea how far along this proposal is? Does it seem fairly likely to happen?
I'm quite happy the corner parcel isn't part of this plan. Do we really want a very mediocre 4 floor LHC apartment building taking up an important corner downtown for decades given a choice? I wouldn't be up in arms if it were on the corner, but I'm glad there will still be an opportunity to do something nicer and/or taller there someday.
EDIT: The more I look at it the more I think the building should be an L oriented to Cherry & Kalamazoo. That still allows for plenty of parking and makes developing the rest of the site in the future much, much easier.