Actually, if you're ever downtown during lunch, you see that the lack of anything in the immediate area kind of forces a lot them onto Washington. It's why I think retail/commerce in the immediate around around the capitol complex would be very, very successful. Washington Square is actually really too busy during lunch, and I'd be glad to see some additional businesses in the west to take pressure off of them.
When I've got visitors from out of town, I don't ever take them to Washington Square for lunch. I'll do dinner downtown, but if you plan to do lunch you better find some way to get in before the rush.
Man, if anyone ever was able to turn a parking lot during lunch into a food court downtown, they'd make a killing. For even as focused on the lunchtime crowd as downtown is often criticized for, there is so much money businesses are leaving on the table by not serving this crowd.
I think because of how quickly it empties out, folks tend to forget that the are thousands and thousands of workers downtown during the day, and that's not even to mention the thousands of college students from LCC, Cooley and Davenport trying to share that same space. It's funny, over the years, I've found my hang-outs gradually moving east downtown Michigan Avenue. lol
A lot of downtowns in large and mid-sized cities tend to be boring. That's because there's usually not a lot of residential properties in the area, and tons of office buildings that demand a lot of parking. That creates a few problems.
Without a lot of residential, you're depending entirely on visitors to prop up downtown, and that's always going to be a bit of battle. You really have to provide something very entertaining to convince people to make a special trip after work. Sure, downtown might have a cool coffee shop or car, but there's probably already a decent one closer to their neighborhood. Downtown Lansing is surrounded by a couple of hip neighborhoods and there are decent downtowns scattered around in the suburban areas, too. The competition is tough.
The huge parking lots and massive parking garages not only create big gaps in the urban fabric of downtown, but discourage visitors that'd have to drive down with parking fees, opening and closing times, and other hassles. And who likes parking meters when you actually want to spend time somewhere? Plus it's just not fun to drive around big downtowns anyway, with all the irregular streets and intersections. The neighborhood or rural downtowns are more approachable.
The office workers crowd out most visitors during the day, but are themselves only interested in their morning coffee and maybe lunch. They're only going to support a limited range of businesses. A few might hang around with coworkers after 5, but that's a much smaller crowd. So you end up with a lot businesses that cater to the daytime crowd, and not so much to the evening crowd.
I've traveled all over this country and generally speaking America's central downtowns are not where it's at. It's the neighborhood downtowns that really shine. Even in Chicago, most of the Loop empties after work. Just like Lansing with Midtown Brewing and Tavern & Tap, you have your spots that shine at night, but that's nestled within a lot of nothing doing. Everyone is hanging out in Chicago's North Side.
So long as the car remains America's dominant form of transportation, I don't see a fix for America's downtowns. Downtowns will continue to function more or less as office parks.
@hood thanks for the reply. I'm so busy with work and other things that i don't get a chance to nose around and get all the details on a lot of these things. Busy busy...
Right now, there are a lot of people living downtown. There are large apartment buildings and lot of single homes along the near west and north sides of downtown. Capital Commons is huge, there must be hundreds of people living there alone. But there are few services for them downtown. It would sure be nice if they had a "city market" instead of an entertainment venue.
I have talked about this before, but I think a frequent Old Town, Downtown, REOtown bus loop, with a west Capitol Complex to Downtown, Stadium District-Lansing Center Sparrow, East Michigan "town" loop that could get a state employee out to the Soup Spoon, or a nurse from Sparrow down to Washington Ave for lunch and a Peanut Shop stop and back to work quickly. Keep that service going into the evenings for people who live in theses areas, they could use them to get to the food stores on Michigan Ave. like Mert's Meats and the Jerusalem Bakery and back downtown. Go out for dinner or to a bar without driving. I know you could do this sort of thing on current bus routes but it would take forever. Use many smaller buses on each loop route for short wait times, maybe get business districts to subsidize those routes to create low are even free fares. Enliven those neighborhoods by actually seeing the people who live there on the streets and on the buses. Lansing is small in area, it would be so nice if I did not have to get into the car to go those short but not really walk-able distances to get from REOtown to Old Town for example. I think making land downtown more valuable to build on, rather than surface parking lots by making it more expensive to own a surface lot downtown. Thank you for considering my brainstorm!
I've always thought there could be a lot more done with this site. At least the design is something different than we currently have but the density isn't what I'd like to see for where it is or what it's zoned for...
Hopefully when this whole silly city hall competition is over with by the end of the year we'll still be hearing about Urban Systems. There are a lots of underuitilized sites downtown ripe for development.
The City Pulse has a good take on this city hall issue. Basically saying that the mayor is moving numbers to fit his reasoning. That remodeling the current city hall would not be as expensive as the mayor is saying, and the cost of a new city hall would be more than he is saying. While it is reasonable to talk about a new city hall and all of that, why not be up front and truthful about all of the options. It would be great to have that block redeveloped, but it all seems like a cart before the horse as they say in the City Pulse. I really hate their design for a hotel tower in the court yard of the city hall. The Lake Side block concept is better, but hardly iconic of a period or type like the current City Hall.
Comments
Actually, if you're ever downtown during lunch, you see that the lack of anything in the immediate area kind of forces a lot them onto Washington. It's why I think retail/commerce in the immediate around around the capitol complex would be very, very successful. Washington Square is actually really too busy during lunch, and I'd be glad to see some additional businesses in the west to take pressure off of them.
When I've got visitors from out of town, I don't ever take them to Washington Square for lunch. I'll do dinner downtown, but if you plan to do lunch you better find some way to get in before the rush.
The trick is to get there for lunch around 11:30 or 11:45 at the latest.
Source: I work downtown and don't even attempt to eat out down there if it's past noon.
Man, if anyone ever was able to turn a parking lot during lunch into a food court downtown, they'd make a killing. For even as focused on the lunchtime crowd as downtown is often criticized for, there is so much money businesses are leaving on the table by not serving this crowd.
I think because of how quickly it empties out, folks tend to forget that the are thousands and thousands of workers downtown during the day, and that's not even to mention the thousands of college students from LCC, Cooley and Davenport trying to share that same space. It's funny, over the years, I've found my hang-outs gradually moving east downtown Michigan Avenue. lol
A lot of downtowns in large and mid-sized cities tend to be boring. That's because there's usually not a lot of residential properties in the area, and tons of office buildings that demand a lot of parking. That creates a few problems.
Without a lot of residential, you're depending entirely on visitors to prop up downtown, and that's always going to be a bit of battle. You really have to provide something very entertaining to convince people to make a special trip after work. Sure, downtown might have a cool coffee shop or car, but there's probably already a decent one closer to their neighborhood. Downtown Lansing is surrounded by a couple of hip neighborhoods and there are decent downtowns scattered around in the suburban areas, too. The competition is tough.
The huge parking lots and massive parking garages not only create big gaps in the urban fabric of downtown, but discourage visitors that'd have to drive down with parking fees, opening and closing times, and other hassles. And who likes parking meters when you actually want to spend time somewhere? Plus it's just not fun to drive around big downtowns anyway, with all the irregular streets and intersections. The neighborhood or rural downtowns are more approachable.
The office workers crowd out most visitors during the day, but are themselves only interested in their morning coffee and maybe lunch. They're only going to support a limited range of businesses. A few might hang around with coworkers after 5, but that's a much smaller crowd. So you end up with a lot businesses that cater to the daytime crowd, and not so much to the evening crowd.
I've traveled all over this country and generally speaking America's central downtowns are not where it's at. It's the neighborhood downtowns that really shine. Even in Chicago, most of the Loop empties after work. Just like Lansing with Midtown Brewing and Tavern & Tap, you have your spots that shine at night, but that's nestled within a lot of nothing doing. Everyone is hanging out in Chicago's North Side.
So long as the car remains America's dominant form of transportation, I don't see a fix for America's downtowns. Downtowns will continue to function more or less as office parks.
@hood thanks for the reply. I'm so busy with work and other things that i don't get a chance to nose around and get all the details on a lot of these things. Busy busy...
Right now, there are a lot of people living downtown. There are large apartment buildings and lot of single homes along the near west and north sides of downtown. Capital Commons is huge, there must be hundreds of people living there alone. But there are few services for them downtown. It would sure be nice if they had a "city market" instead of an entertainment venue.
I have talked about this before, but I think a frequent Old Town, Downtown, REOtown bus loop, with a west Capitol Complex to Downtown, Stadium District-Lansing Center Sparrow, East Michigan "town" loop that could get a state employee out to the Soup Spoon, or a nurse from Sparrow down to Washington Ave for lunch and a Peanut Shop stop and back to work quickly. Keep that service going into the evenings for people who live in theses areas, they could use them to get to the food stores on Michigan Ave. like Mert's Meats and the Jerusalem Bakery and back downtown. Go out for dinner or to a bar without driving. I know you could do this sort of thing on current bus routes but it would take forever. Use many smaller buses on each loop route for short wait times, maybe get business districts to subsidize those routes to create low are even free fares. Enliven those neighborhoods by actually seeing the people who live there on the streets and on the buses. Lansing is small in area, it would be so nice if I did not have to get into the car to go those short but not really walk-able distances to get from REOtown to Old Town for example. I think making land downtown more valuable to build on, rather than surface parking lots by making it more expensive to own a surface lot downtown. Thank you for considering my brainstorm!
http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/news/local/2017/09/20/extended-stay-hotel-planned-former-deluxe-inn-site-reo-town/678590001/
I've always thought there could be a lot more done with this site. At least the design is something different than we currently have but the density isn't what I'd like to see for where it is or what it's zoned for...
In other post I mentioned Urban Systems- here are some higher-res images of their proposals for City Hall and the Lake Trust side:
Washington Ave, where the Lake Trust building is sitting.
City Hall
Washington Ave proposal
Note that their proposal elimitates the awful parking lot at Lenawee and Washington in their revamp for City Hall and that whole block.
Hopefully when this whole silly city hall competition is over with by the end of the year we'll still be hearing about Urban Systems. There are a lots of underuitilized sites downtown ripe for development.
The City Pulse has a good take on this city hall issue. Basically saying that the mayor is moving numbers to fit his reasoning. That remodeling the current city hall would not be as expensive as the mayor is saying, and the cost of a new city hall would be more than he is saying. While it is reasonable to talk about a new city hall and all of that, why not be up front and truthful about all of the options. It would be great to have that block redeveloped, but it all seems like a cart before the horse as they say in the City Pulse. I really hate their design for a hotel tower in the court yard of the city hall. The Lake Side block concept is better, but hardly iconic of a period or type like the current City Hall.