That is really exciting to hear, I often pass the building walking on the river trail, it's a mess right now. I think there is a sidewalk on the Beech St. bridge that could be extended down South St. to the site. I see lots of big trucks turning down South St. so there is a lot of activity down there already. I hope they will be removing the huge mound of broken pavement there right next to the river.
On the river trail along there it can be very unpleasant, the smell from the tar soaked utility poles is really strong on hot days. Maybe the BWL could put the poles on the other side of the lot. The Red Cedar looks pretty gross as it passes under the rail bridge there. Huge trees and branches have collected at the bridge creating a damn that catches all the floating litter and scum from the river,not too scenic. On the good side there are lots of really nice trees that would fill the view from the river side of the redeveloped building.
I thought I heard this mentioned before, but City Pulse has a story on a developer who will be leasing part of Riverfront park north of Saginaw to build a zipline over the river: Let it Zip - City Pulse
Yeah, I think the location for the zipline is right also, it's high profile but not highly utilized. My bet would be that this will happen, it seems like a relatively modest proposal and I expect it should do well. Little things like this can help a lot, I would think that this thing could easily bring 100+ people per day down there on nice days, more on the weekends. More people in the downtown area for just about any reason is a good thing.
It's good to see the School for the Blind project moving forward, I'm cautiously optimistic that it's for real this time. The neighborhoods north of Willow are really a problem for that area though, the neighborhoods to the east and to a lesser extent, the south, seem like they might make a comeback in the foreseeable future. I wonder what purpose a 600 sq ft police substation is supposed to serve though?
Hopefully the zipline would encourage the city to build a sidewalk along Grand Avenue between Saginaw and Oakland. How there isn't one already with a CATA bus stop there, I will not understand. I see people every once in a while walking in the street or trudging through the snow/grass after getting dropped off because there isn't one.
Regarding the neighborhood north of Willow, I'd always thought the houses up there looked like they were a significant notch down in quality relative to the neighborhoods south and east of there. They seem to be smaller with less of the craftsmen touches that make many of the other older homes desirable for rehabilitation. I think that doomed the neighborhood a long time ago, although I'd definitely agree that the relative isolation and lack of a strong commercial corridor have done a lot to help in it's demise. The neighborhood north of Willow is one of the few older neighborhoods in the City that I don't believe has much chance of turning around. Beyond digging in to the specific reasons, the neighborhood just feels as though mediocrity is the absolute best it could hope for.
I'm very curious as to what they come up with for the Lake Trust site, development west of the river has been far too rare. Hopefully this is more than just a speculative rezoning and there's a real proposal around the corner.
Reading over the Forever Park proposal and seeing the site plan/rendering I'm pretty disappointed in the design they came up with, the proposal from the 80's was vastly more interesting. The design they show seems like nothing more than a grassy field with various plantings, the various streetscaping improvements they show are more significant than the park itself. It also bugs me that they didn't attempt to integrate the Vietnam Memorial and its surrounding land into the park, since this design was only conceptual they really should have been more adventurous. If this moves forward I hope it ends up with a better design, one that includes water features and perhaps some space for public art, it should really encompass the strip of land with the Vietnam Memorial also. I guess there's no reason to worry about it now though, it's long ways off from becoming reality and I'm sure if it does happen there will be plenty of changes along the way. I'm all for less surface parking downtown either way.
This would be great, but when looking at all the nice drawings of what it could look like,I get that sinking feeling that I have when I have looked at Lansing plans in the past. It all looks great but will they ever build it. Everything they have planned in the Capitol Complex once had a more ornate plan, a more beautiful landscaped park, beautiful friendly facades on the buildings. What is there is not really any of those things, just lots of walls and huge parking lots. Politicians who generally seem to hate the city of Lansing,always get a hold of the plan and that is the end of anything grand or special. Maybe somehow this new plan will get done. I am very impressed with the Capitol Building renovation, it looks so beautiful, especially right at sunset when the dome looks almost translucent in the new lighting. So may be there is hope after all.
@gbinlansing This kinda goes back to my rant the other day about the lack of vision and drive to really get things done (although I know this project in particular depends more on the State than the City.) So much seemed to happen on the public side of things when Hollister was mayor, he's largely responsible for the opportunity the city has now. He got Olds Park built, the Lansing Center remodeled, convinced GM to stay and shepherded the turn around of Old Town, all in less than 10 years. Bernero has moved things in the right direction when it comes to private mixed-use development, but infrastructure is as bad as it has ever been, the parks are barely holding together and there's been a lack of any major public projects. Even the permanent stage for Adado was a dead proposal, that was a very modest couple million dollar project that would've been highly utilized and the city still dropped the ball.
Lansing desperately needs more significant public investment. We need a better home and expanded focus for the RE Olds and Impression 5 museums (an art museum and performing arts center would also be nice), we'll need an improved/expanded convention center at some point, we need our parks to be well maintained along with a few signature parks that see significant investment and we absolutely need our roads to be far better maintained. It's almost laughable that the city is trying to market Michigan Ave as this great place to visit/live/work/invest yet the road is a sea of potholes with poor streetscaping, but instead of doing even a minimal fix (like on E Mt Hope) they sit on their hands and wait for BRT funding that is years off and may never even come. These are things that other cities do, why not Lansing? The only thing I listed that's really out of the City's hands are the roads, even then the City needs to maintain its premier corridors better with or without state/federal funding. Improved museums and parks are well within reach and there should be concrete strategies to realize these things. There's really no excuse for the way things are and this is what frustrates me so much.
Just a note, I think Bernero unloading the River Trail and the zoo to the county were a couple of the best moves he made since he gained office. The county's stewardship of the zoo has been massively beneficial as things are looking brighter there than I ever expected they would and I expect their stewardship over the trail system will be equally successful.
As for revenue sharing cuts, a quick look would show that revenue sharing cuts continued unabated through the Engler, Granholm and Snyder administrations. Under Snyder's (controversial) revised revenue sharing guidelines many cities finally saw their first year-over-year increase in years for 2014 (admittedly mostly due to the improving national economy). The corporate tax cuts were a necessary evil to remain competitive with all the other states selling their souls for jobs. This state was bleeding corporations and their jobs, all fleeing for warmer climates with more advantageous tax structures. The problem with corporations/businesses/investors whoring out our communities and state governments is going to have to be dealt with simultaneously at a federal and international level. Reigning in the power of corporations in general while keeping their beneficial aspects is imperative to this country as a whole moving forward.
I know the City can't do everything it'd like to in these hard times, but to stick to my example, there still no excuse for Michigan Ave to look the way that it does. It's supposed to be the focal point of rejuvenation of this entire area and they can't squeeze a few hundred thousand out of somewhere to properly patch the street to get by another five or so years? Also, my point is largely that there's not even a conversation about about making major public improvements so we can begin to grasp what it will take to get things done. Everyone in this city and state seem to have this attitude that anything better is unreachable so we should just be happy that things aren't worse, that's not an acceptable attitude. There's absolutely no excuse to not even have a conversation about these things and create a plan as to how to get them done, yet our leaders consistently play the blame game rather than tackling the problem at hand.
And if you want to outright blame the Republicans or Snyder or otherwise be openly political, just say so, no reason to dance around the subject. I don't have a problem bluntly saying I'm a civil libertarian, an independent on economic issues (the economy is far too complicated to go full-on libertarian), I despise politicians and especially the two major parties. I'll be the first to admit that I've liked Snyder (I'll hold judgement on this Flint water issue), just the facts that he's stayed away from civil issues and done some important things to get Detroit on the right track means a lot to me.
You seemed like you were beating around the bush, I was simply stating that I'm totally comfortable with a more overt political debate. These are political issues, there's no way to discuss them without being political and no point in not being clear. Sorry to offend you.
I'm quite sick of the excuses made for the lack of vision and progress in Lansing by people throughout my life, if that comes off as overdramatic then so be it. There's solutions to every problem, other cities face the same issues and manage to survive and flourish, I will not make excuses for Lansing's shortcomings. This is about not even having a plan in place, not even a discussion about meaningful public improvements or how to achieve growth. If Lansing had been investing in a public project, like those mentioned, once every decade or two it wouldn't seem so daunting an issue, but no, lets continue to kick the can down the road.
Regarding Michigan Ave, I don't need to write public service to know that they could do a Mt Hope like, respectable patch job on Michigan Ave for relatively little money. Besides, I did say that roads were largely out of the city's hands, I was giving Michigan Ave as an example of a street that the city should be willing to spend its own money on to maintain if necessary, because it's crucial to future growth and investment.
Comments
On the river trail along there it can be very unpleasant, the smell from the tar soaked utility poles is really strong on hot days. Maybe the BWL could put the poles on the other side of the lot. The Red Cedar looks pretty gross as it passes under the rail bridge there. Huge trees and branches have collected at the bridge creating a damn that catches all the floating litter and scum from the river,not too scenic. On the good side there are lots of really nice trees that would fill the view from the river side of the redeveloped building.
It's good to see the School for the Blind project moving forward, I'm cautiously optimistic that it's for real this time. The neighborhoods north of Willow are really a problem for that area though, the neighborhoods to the east and to a lesser extent, the south, seem like they might make a comeback in the foreseeable future. I wonder what purpose a 600 sq ft police substation is supposed to serve though?
I'm very curious as to what they come up with for the Lake Trust site, development west of the river has been far too rare. Hopefully this is more than just a speculative rezoning and there's a real proposal around the corner.
Lansing desperately needs more significant public investment. We need a better home and expanded focus for the RE Olds and Impression 5 museums (an art museum and performing arts center would also be nice), we'll need an improved/expanded convention center at some point, we need our parks to be well maintained along with a few signature parks that see significant investment and we absolutely need our roads to be far better maintained. It's almost laughable that the city is trying to market Michigan Ave as this great place to visit/live/work/invest yet the road is a sea of potholes with poor streetscaping, but instead of doing even a minimal fix (like on E Mt Hope) they sit on their hands and wait for BRT funding that is years off and may never even come. These are things that other cities do, why not Lansing? The only thing I listed that's really out of the City's hands are the roads, even then the City needs to maintain its premier corridors better with or without state/federal funding. Improved museums and parks are well within reach and there should be concrete strategies to realize these things. There's really no excuse for the way things are and this is what frustrates me so much.
As for revenue sharing cuts, a quick look would show that revenue sharing cuts continued unabated through the Engler, Granholm and Snyder administrations. Under Snyder's (controversial) revised revenue sharing guidelines many cities finally saw their first year-over-year increase in years for 2014 (admittedly mostly due to the improving national economy). The corporate tax cuts were a necessary evil to remain competitive with all the other states selling their souls for jobs. This state was bleeding corporations and their jobs, all fleeing for warmer climates with more advantageous tax structures. The problem with corporations/businesses/investors whoring out our communities and state governments is going to have to be dealt with simultaneously at a federal and international level. Reigning in the power of corporations in general while keeping their beneficial aspects is imperative to this country as a whole moving forward.
I know the City can't do everything it'd like to in these hard times, but to stick to my example, there still no excuse for Michigan Ave to look the way that it does. It's supposed to be the focal point of rejuvenation of this entire area and they can't squeeze a few hundred thousand out of somewhere to properly patch the street to get by another five or so years? Also, my point is largely that there's not even a conversation about about making major public improvements so we can begin to grasp what it will take to get things done. Everyone in this city and state seem to have this attitude that anything better is unreachable so we should just be happy that things aren't worse, that's not an acceptable attitude. There's absolutely no excuse to not even have a conversation about these things and create a plan as to how to get them done, yet our leaders consistently play the blame game rather than tackling the problem at hand.
And if you want to outright blame the Republicans or Snyder or otherwise be openly political, just say so, no reason to dance around the subject. I don't have a problem bluntly saying I'm a civil libertarian, an independent on economic issues (the economy is far too complicated to go full-on libertarian), I despise politicians and especially the two major parties. I'll be the first to admit that I've liked Snyder (I'll hold judgement on this Flint water issue), just the facts that he's stayed away from civil issues and done some important things to get Detroit on the right track means a lot to me.
I'm quite sick of the excuses made for the lack of vision and progress in Lansing by people throughout my life, if that comes off as overdramatic then so be it. There's solutions to every problem, other cities face the same issues and manage to survive and flourish, I will not make excuses for Lansing's shortcomings. This is about not even having a plan in place, not even a discussion about meaningful public improvements or how to achieve growth. If Lansing had been investing in a public project, like those mentioned, once every decade or two it wouldn't seem so daunting an issue, but no, lets continue to kick the can down the road.
Regarding Michigan Ave, I don't need to write public service to know that they could do a Mt Hope like, respectable patch job on Michigan Ave for relatively little money. Besides, I did say that roads were largely out of the city's hands, I was giving Michigan Ave as an example of a street that the city should be willing to spend its own money on to maintain if necessary, because it's crucial to future growth and investment.