I forgot to mention that after typing my post, I shot an email to Bob to ask them if they were doing a parking study for the Stadium District and he said they are definitely, as we speaking, looking at the parking situation on the eastbank.
LMich: "I'm not complaining at all. As with any studio lot, this is an industrial building, so I'm looking at it mostly in terms of economic impact. You can't treat it like a mixed-use development."
Really? You can't? Come on, be creative and think outside the box a little. Literally! Healthy urban areas thrive in part because of the synergy that develops among different uses in a dense area. Don't take "mixed use" so literally -- just because different residential--commercial or industrial-commercial aren't literally stacked on top of one another doesn't mean that we shouldn't be thinking of how this building might mesh with the rest of that area. This is downtown!
LMich, you mention "economic impact". To me, economic impact is about more than just the jobs inside the building. Since this isn't a greenfield development in the middle of nowhere, we can and should be thinking of how this can spillover in a positive way into downtown Lansing. We need to think about secondary economic impacts and how urban design can help us capitalize on those. We here in Michigan are great at coming up with primary incentives for economic development, but we don't seem to get the idea that through something as simple as thoughtful building orientation we can encourage tremendous ripple effects. We can build things more intelligently -- we're not always cognizant of walkable design and density, and we should be -- even if its an industrial building.
Imagine for a second that you're a film industry guy or gal from New York or L.A. and you fly into town to do some work at the City Center Studios in Lansing. After a long day of work you want nothing more than to have a beer and burger and see what Lansing has to offer. Do we want the building to make you feel like you're in some fortress? Do we want you to drive out to Eastwood and eat at some chain, or do we want you to wander out the door onto Cedar Street and have you happen upon a Lugnuts game or walk over to the Nuthouse or some other restaurant that might show up soon?
Don't get me wrong: I like what Gillespie is doing, but this "I'll take whatever I can get" attitude toward development here in Lansing is going to bite back one day. We can be a tad bit more creative.
I agree. I never really gave your concept of mixed-use any thought, but I don't know why I didn't. I do hope that this project doesn't act as a bookend to the Stadium District, I hope that it allows for a seamless district from north to south, with wide sidewalks and pedestrian freindly streetscaping.
That was a little much. I'd like to see a bit more for this studio, too (if it ever gets built), but it's not a huge disappointment, to me, for the very reasons I mentioned. Perhaps, I just have a different view of the district and what it should/could be. I don't have a problem with a industrial studio this far north into the district, and I'm quite frankly done complaining about every little thing. If this is a miss, Gillespie has had (and will have with Ballpark North and Marketplace) plenty of hits.
Notice the security huts at the vehicle entrance, I'm sure they're there for a reason. It would be nice to make this a mixed use development, but it just doesn't seem feasible with the security requirements the studios probably have.
I wasn't proposing that this development should be mixed-use. I was agreeing with ReversibleHat that having the area as whole be mixed-use is enough, and that not every building has to have 3 or 4 different uses, some developments (like this one) simply can't and/or shouldn't be mixed use.
Film making, alone, won't stop the brain drain, but then again there is no single silver bullet, and I think our leaders have to stop looking at it this way. We made the same mistake early in the last century when we hitched our trailor to the automobile, and look how that turned out.
I think (if not we're in serious trouble) that Lansing and MI leaders have finally figured out no matter how good a single industry/company is, you can't rely on it...and the only reason they've figured this out is after 20 or more years of the Big Three faultering and watching MI suffer.
I think Lansing has a good enough base with enough diversity, there is hope. With Neogen and Emergent we've got a decent biotech/pharmaceutical base, Accident Fund, Jackson, Millers, Auto Owners we've got insurance, Capitol Bank and some others provide a small financial sector, GM and it's suppliers have manufacturing, Liquid Web, TechSmith is technology, etc.
I believe we're slowly heading in the right direction, with City Center we're creating a new industry, relatively smaller than the rest, and if we focus on adding things like City Center while growing what we have it will start moving forward. In addition to adding things like City Center, we need to focus on building Captiol Bank and the financial sector and Liquid and Tech to build the technology sector. Those two sectors are relatively small in Lansing and I think are important to focus resources on. Also, there are a couple small companies in the area, one that was started by a MSU prof that manufactures parts for particle accelerators or something like that which is super hitech and I hope the city/state focus some time/energy on those. If MSU gets that cyclotron deal that was in the news a while back, that could spur some more private development in that sector.
Comments
http://www.citycenterstudios.com/docs/Pat_Gillespie_6-3.mp3
You have to right-click and "save target as," its an mp3.
Really? You can't? Come on, be creative and think outside the box a little. Literally! Healthy urban areas thrive in part because of the synergy that develops among different uses in a dense area. Don't take "mixed use" so literally -- just because different residential--commercial or industrial-commercial aren't literally stacked on top of one another doesn't mean that we shouldn't be thinking of how this building might mesh with the rest of that area. This is downtown!
LMich, you mention "economic impact". To me, economic impact is about more than just the jobs inside the building. Since this isn't a greenfield development in the middle of nowhere, we can and should be thinking of how this can spillover in a positive way into downtown Lansing. We need to think about secondary economic impacts and how urban design can help us capitalize on those. We here in Michigan are great at coming up with primary incentives for economic development, but we don't seem to get the idea that through something as simple as thoughtful building orientation we can encourage tremendous ripple effects. We can build things more intelligently -- we're not always cognizant of walkable design and density, and we should be -- even if its an industrial building.
Imagine for a second that you're a film industry guy or gal from New York or L.A. and you fly into town to do some work at the City Center Studios in Lansing. After a long day of work you want nothing more than to have a beer and burger and see what Lansing has to offer. Do we want the building to make you feel like you're in some fortress? Do we want you to drive out to Eastwood and eat at some chain, or do we want you to wander out the door onto Cedar Street and have you happen upon a Lugnuts game or walk over to the Nuthouse or some other restaurant that might show up soon?
Don't get me wrong: I like what Gillespie is doing, but this "I'll take whatever I can get" attitude toward development here in Lansing is going to bite back one day. We can be a tad bit more creative.
I wasn't proposing that this development should be mixed-use. I was agreeing with ReversibleHat that having the area as whole be mixed-use is enough, and that not every building has to have 3 or 4 different uses, some developments (like this one) simply can't and/or shouldn't be mixed use.
Ahptic hopes that this will stop the brain drain in Michigan's economy.
I think Lansing has a good enough base with enough diversity, there is hope. With Neogen and Emergent we've got a decent biotech/pharmaceutical base, Accident Fund, Jackson, Millers, Auto Owners we've got insurance, Capitol Bank and some others provide a small financial sector, GM and it's suppliers have manufacturing, Liquid Web, TechSmith is technology, etc.
I believe we're slowly heading in the right direction, with City Center we're creating a new industry, relatively smaller than the rest, and if we focus on adding things like City Center while growing what we have it will start moving forward. In addition to adding things like City Center, we need to focus on building Captiol Bank and the financial sector and Liquid and Tech to build the technology sector. Those two sectors are relatively small in Lansing and I think are important to focus resources on. Also, there are a couple small companies in the area, one that was started by a MSU prof that manufactures parts for particle accelerators or something like that which is super hitech and I hope the city/state focus some time/energy on those. If MSU gets that cyclotron deal that was in the news a while back, that could spur some more private development in that sector.