Other than restaurant bars I don't think there is anything called night life at Eastwood. Old Town, the Stadium District, and downtown East Lansing have real bars clubs and night life. All of these districts are minuets from Eastwood. Please don't them just stay out there, it's nice but not real Lansing.
Oh,and take them out to South Lake Lansing Park, it is such a nice place to have a picnic, the grass beach is so green, lots of shade if you like, and the water is really great for a quick swim. The Blue Gill Grill is a fun place with good food and drink.
The 143-room hotel will be built north of Hyatt Place on Towne Centre Boulevard. The estimated $16 million project still needs approval from the township board before it can be built, said Steve Hayward, executive director of the Eastwood Downtown Development Authority. It will be brought up at next week's meeting.
The second hotel that was planned for the project, Fairfield Inn & Suites, opened last month. The $10 million, four-story hotel, developed by Eyde, includes 121 rooms.
West of the Fairfield, Eyde has begun site preparation on the $15 million Hilton Homewood Suites. The seven-story hotel will include 139 rooms and Eyde said he hopes to have it open by summer 2017. Construction of the Holiday Inn could start in a month and Eyde said it could open by spring 2018.
It is great to see more hotels going up in Greater Lansing. The location still seems so unfortunate. I call it Lansing's beautiful cement factory district over looking the rolling land fill hills. Maybe I am missing something but I think I would go nuts if I had to stay out there for three days without a car. I would also think it would be very sad if that was the only place visitors saw while staying here. Lets run the BRT though Eastwood so people could get out of there if they wanted to see real Lansing.
I don't want to belabor this too much, but while I've also been critical about Eastwood, it's important to remember that before Eastwood, people were staying out in even less exciting locations when coming into town like out on West Saginaw even further from town. At least Eastwood is a node, and it's connected to downtown Lansing and East Lansing by three or more different transit lines. Eastwood is good for what it is, not my personal preference, but a huge step up from staying out on West Saginaw Highway where there is NO regular transit connection to the city or even to the nearby mall, where you'd have to hope you had your own car or hope that your hotel had some kind of shuttle.
Ideally, Eastwood would have been built at the Red Cedar location. It is very close, though. 2.5 miles. It is also close to Old Town, Downtown Lansing and East Lansing, the new Eastside developments, and MSU. Also, it draws many shoppers to the metro from outlying towns. As far as sprawl goes, it is pretty much adjacent to the urban centers and is self-contained (& becoming quite dense). Ironically, one could argue that the resurgence of the 127 corridor (including Red Cedar) has been greatly accelerated by Eastwood. BTW, that 127 corridor drive is going to look sweet with these new hotels, SkyVue, Red Cedar (2 buildings at ~10 stories), and whatever happens in the Eastside neighborhood.
To be fair, I live close to Eastwood and go there occasionally (maybe once every 10 days or so), so I'm biased. I think I'm being objective, though, when I say that it is a big draw for Lansing Metro. If someone is considering moving to the area, it helps to have shopping, bars, restaurants, and services like those in Eastwood. My family used to take weekend trips to the Courtyard hotel across the street from Eastwood (before Eastwood existed) and explore the area from there. We toured the Capital, went to the museums downtown, attended events at MSU, and shopped in Okemos. Those trips were definitely influential in my decision to attend MSU, which ultimately led me to live here.
A minor point, but not sure what you mean by three transit lines - the current CATA map indicates Eastwood is served by routes 16 and 13, both originating in downtown Lansing. Route 25, originating at MSU, USED to go there, and they even held a contest to try to drum up interest that almost no one participated in - 25 was rerouted (in part, I suspect, to deal with overloaded 26 buses serving Chandler Crossings) and the other terminus is now the Lake Lansing Meijer.
I was just basically saying that the location of all of this development is odd to me. This place itself is OK and I know lots of people these days entertain themselves by shopping, which is fine with me. It is slightly more civilized than W. Saginaw and of course very central, just a few miles from anywhere, I get why it's there. I was just looking at it as what an outsider might think it if they opened the curtains of their hotel room to see the land fill and cement factory towers all around. Fix Lake Lansing road it's being crashed be all the trash trucks. Get the cement factories to do dust abatement, the whole neighborhood gets covered in white dust on windy days. Build less ugly hotels. That is how I feel about the area.
Holiday Inn rendering from the LSJ, today. It's a cookie-cutter hotel, of course, but always good to get a rendering, nonetheless.
They say this will be located north of (and directly behind) the Hyatt on Towne Centre Boulevard. Site prep starts next month. Now, where are the Hilton Homewood Suites going?
This at least is a plan with a balance of design with function, it is obviously a Holiday Inn, in the sub-burbs. I like it better than the Hyatt out there.
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$16M Holiday Inn planned for Heights at Eastwood
To be fair, I live close to Eastwood and go there occasionally (maybe once every 10 days or so), so I'm biased. I think I'm being objective, though, when I say that it is a big draw for Lansing Metro. If someone is considering moving to the area, it helps to have shopping, bars, restaurants, and services like those in Eastwood. My family used to take weekend trips to the Courtyard hotel across the street from Eastwood (before Eastwood existed) and explore the area from there. We toured the Capital, went to the museums downtown, attended events at MSU, and shopped in Okemos. Those trips were definitely influential in my decision to attend MSU, which ultimately led me to live here.
They say this will be located north of (and directly behind) the Hyatt on Towne Centre Boulevard. Site prep starts next month. Now, where are the Hilton Homewood Suites going?