Ha! The council will be considering setting a public hearing for the city hall redevelopment proposal at their Monday meeting. They better hurry up. lol There is only one more scheduled meeting (December 10) after their upcoming meeting, which is when the public hearing would be held. That means they'd have to schedule a special meeting sometime between the 10th and years end, even if they end up setting the public hearing.
Anyway, public hearings will be held on Monday for Neogen redevelopment on Hosmer, the sale of Waverly/Michigan Avenue Park, and sale of the REO Transportation Museum. So conceivably, these are all things that could be completed by years end if they schedule the December 10 meeting to approve these.
As for development-related stuff that could pass on Monday, you have the sale of the properties on Simken (totally 3 acres) for Beacon Field Southwest, and after 2 years of work and controversy, approving the partial rezoning of 930 West Holmes (old EDS building). What I found interesting about Beacon Field Southwest that was different than what I'd reported earlier on it, it looks like the Ingham County Land Bank is selling the land to the city for $1 per each of the three parcels, so they are basically giving the city the land.
It's disappointing to hear that the city vacated Washtenaw, it seems somewhat unlikely that Eyde would reopen the street as any part of redevelopment plan. And you're right about development shifting east. Washington really does need some major developments, seeing the Knapp's properly renovated is great and it's good to see Gentilozzi planning on doing something with the Michigan Theater but there needs to be more. There's a small parking lot at Washington and Washtenaw that could fit a small building and the buildings in between the Michigan Theater and Allegan are essentially disposable and a proper high rise could fit there but beyond that there's not a room for anything major along the core part of Washington itself. Seeing Grand Ave and the cross streets get more attention would do wonders;
I'm worried that the City Hall sale is actually going to pass, I thought I read a quote somewhere saying Schor is "90% behind it". At $50 million to renovate the LSJ building this is essentially sounding like a payoff to Eyde.
I do understand the design and orientation of the Hall of Justice, and I think it is an OK building in design. A welcoming western entrance would have been nice for the local Lansing folks who may have wanted to walk there. The idea I was trying to communicate was, that building and the whole complex is not involved in the surrounding neighborhood in any way and that maybe it could be. The 70's part of the complex was designed to be defensible in reaction to the civil unrest of those days. It was meant to be above the neighborhood. The newer buildings are less defensive but the surface lots are still a barrier to any neighborhood interaction. Offices with many workers should be surrounded by all kinds of activity, at least in the daytime. I could see a shuttle bus loop running around the complex to take locals and state workers downtown and Michigan Ave., like at the airport several small buses on a short route to get people downtown and back easily and quickly. There was a good grocery store at Kalamazoo and MLK, it was always busy. I think a small grocery would do well in that area.
A story on the controversy surrounding the rezoning of the old EDS property at Washington and Holmes. I'm not sure if the author of the article got it wrong, but the council agenda clearly shows this rezoning being up for passage, tonight, so I'm not sure about the part that I bolded.
SOUTH LANSING — Potholes. Overgrown weeds. Broken windows. A sign declaring the property is unsafe to occupy.
A massive, and vacant, building at 930 W. Holmes Road in Lansing is considered a "window" into the community by neighborhood associations, but is located in what has been referred to as the "four worst corners of Lansing" by a nearby business owner.
The current owner owes more than $120,000 in back taxes and fees, but he has a proposition for Lansing City Council: rezone and the taxes will be paid and millions will be pumped into the property which could bring more national tenants, create competition and inject the corridor with economic hope.
After more than an hour of discussion at a recent meeting, the council voted to table the item until tonight's meeting.
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If a public hearing should be scheduled, the earliest it could happen would be January, when a new mayor and three new council members are sworn into office.
I keep saying this, but this is a win-win and shouldn't have taken years to get to this point. The EDS building gets renovated, and the outlots are still zoned so that commercial businesses can be built to cover up the reuse of the interior building as a storage facility. Just pull the trigger, already.
Yes, the back taxes are a problem, but this deal would cover that (the new owner will pay the back taxes). If this doesn't pass, this could go to the Ingham County treasure in March of next year where some slumlord with no plans for the site could purchase it and continue to leave it vacant. You actually got someone that actually wants to do something with it.
The biggeset opposition, unsurprisingly, comes from two neighborhood self-storage facilities in the area, and then two local neighborhood associations.
This is pie-in-the-sky, but it would be great if the city could forgive the back-taxes by carving off a chunk of that huge parking lot to set up as a small park/outdoor marketplace. That would really give that huge, sprawling commercial intersection a nice looking focal point.
Well, the council finally got West 930 Holmes out the way after two years. I also remember the debate internally within council was whether or not to hold a second public hearing, which is what the previous LSJ article was talking about, which would have pushed the decision back. It was a delaying tactic to try and kill the rezoning. So, this gets that out of the way. Of course, it was a 5-3 vote with the usual suspects:
The majority of city councill sided with the proponents, when it voted 5-3 Monday to rezone a parcel of land at 930 W. Holmes Road on Lansing's south side.
Third Ward Council Member Jody Washington, 1st Ward Council Member Adam Hussain and Council Vice President Carol Wood, who serves as an at at-large member, voted against rezoning.
Honestly, my only interest in this was as a proxy to demonstrate how some on council see rezoning: as a hill to die on. Rezoning for something like this only allows for the owner to negotiate a possible sell; it shouldn't have been seen as some kind of approval for the proposed project, which would have to come back before the city administration, anyway, for a building permit at the very least, and most likely before the city legislature for the approval of incentives at which point a debate over the merits of the proposal would be appropriate.
I'm not particularly crazy about a storage facility, here, but I also thought the current owner bent over backwards to compromise on this one most, notably the inclusion of the perimeter of the property being left alone so that it can continue to be marketed as commercial space and also that the conditional rezoning bans the new owner from putting up a chain-link fence around the interior of the property for the storage facility.
At the end of the day, this had sat vacant way too long and there was no way the building was going to be reused as Class A office space. But judging by the fight over this, you'd have thought they were debating allowing a strip club or giant marijuana dispensary in the building. lol It's literally going to be a higher-class storage facility set way back from the street, which will then allow us to move on to full vision for the rest of the area. But, here's the bottom line: the Form-Based Code comes up for a public hearing at next month's council meeting. As currently zoned in the Form-Base Code, something like this wouldn't even be a debate, because it couldn't have been developed by-right. This would have largely taken care of this proposal, because the developer likely wouldn't have been brought this project to council given that the zoning of the area ould have prevented something like this. In the Former-Base Code, the entire area is zoned MX-2 Community Center. Among other things, it would require developers at the street corners in this area (MLK and Holmes, Holmes and Washington, etc.) to orient new buildings to the corner (75% of their frontage on primary streets, and 25% on secondary streets). Even more than that, spot-zoning is particularly discouraged in FBC, so the developer would have had to have made an even stronger case than he has that a rezoning like this was absolutely necessary and that he'd exhausted all other possibilities.
I like the part where the owner says he did not pay his taxes because he did not like the way the city was treating him. I did not know this was a legal option. I would tend to agree that in this case, something new is better than what is there now. I can not help but wonder just who are these people who need all this storage space? Is the market for these facilities endless? I think there are more self-storage businesses than pot shops or even Quality Diaries!
It is true that I have only lived here for a couple of years but it seems like there a lot. During that time I have seen a new self-storage businesses open at the old Ford dealership on MLK and another on Hosmer. Maybe I just do not have a lot of junk in the trunk to store so they seem kind of useless to me. Having a functioning business in a formerly vacant building is better than an empty building, but this sort of business does not offer many jobs and add little to the neighborhoods in which they are located.
Comments
Ha! The council will be considering setting a public hearing for the city hall redevelopment proposal at their Monday meeting. They better hurry up. lol There is only one more scheduled meeting (December 10) after their upcoming meeting, which is when the public hearing would be held. That means they'd have to schedule a special meeting sometime between the 10th and years end, even if they end up setting the public hearing.
Anyway, public hearings will be held on Monday for Neogen redevelopment on Hosmer, the sale of Waverly/Michigan Avenue Park, and sale of the REO Transportation Museum. So conceivably, these are all things that could be completed by years end if they schedule the December 10 meeting to approve these.
As for development-related stuff that could pass on Monday, you have the sale of the properties on Simken (totally 3 acres) for Beacon Field Southwest, and after 2 years of work and controversy, approving the partial rezoning of 930 West Holmes (old EDS building). What I found interesting about Beacon Field Southwest that was different than what I'd reported earlier on it, it looks like the Ingham County Land Bank is selling the land to the city for $1 per each of the three parcels, so they are basically giving the city the land.
It's disappointing to hear that the city vacated Washtenaw, it seems somewhat unlikely that Eyde would reopen the street as any part of redevelopment plan. And you're right about development shifting east. Washington really does need some major developments, seeing the Knapp's properly renovated is great and it's good to see Gentilozzi planning on doing something with the Michigan Theater but there needs to be more. There's a small parking lot at Washington and Washtenaw that could fit a small building and the buildings in between the Michigan Theater and Allegan are essentially disposable and a proper high rise could fit there but beyond that there's not a room for anything major along the core part of Washington itself. Seeing Grand Ave and the cross streets get more attention would do wonders;
I'm worried that the City Hall sale is actually going to pass, I thought I read a quote somewhere saying Schor is "90% behind it". At $50 million to renovate the LSJ building this is essentially sounding like a payoff to Eyde.
I do understand the design and orientation of the Hall of Justice, and I think it is an OK building in design. A welcoming western entrance would have been nice for the local Lansing folks who may have wanted to walk there. The idea I was trying to communicate was, that building and the whole complex is not involved in the surrounding neighborhood in any way and that maybe it could be. The 70's part of the complex was designed to be defensible in reaction to the civil unrest of those days. It was meant to be above the neighborhood. The newer buildings are less defensive but the surface lots are still a barrier to any neighborhood interaction. Offices with many workers should be surrounded by all kinds of activity, at least in the daytime. I could see a shuttle bus loop running around the complex to take locals and state workers downtown and Michigan Ave., like at the airport several small buses on a short route to get people downtown and back easily and quickly. There was a good grocery store at Kalamazoo and MLK, it was always busy. I think a small grocery would do well in that area.
Hey, does anyone know the construction companies involved in Center City and The Venue at East Town?
A story on the controversy surrounding the rezoning of the old EDS property at Washington and Holmes. I'm not sure if the author of the article got it wrong, but the council agenda clearly shows this rezoning being up for passage, tonight, so I'm not sure about the part that I bolded.
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I keep saying this, but this is a win-win and shouldn't have taken years to get to this point. The EDS building gets renovated, and the outlots are still zoned so that commercial businesses can be built to cover up the reuse of the interior building as a storage facility. Just pull the trigger, already.
Yes, the back taxes are a problem, but this deal would cover that (the new owner will pay the back taxes). If this doesn't pass, this could go to the Ingham County treasure in March of next year where some slumlord with no plans for the site could purchase it and continue to leave it vacant. You actually got someone that actually wants to do something with it.
The biggeset opposition, unsurprisingly, comes from two neighborhood self-storage facilities in the area, and then two local neighborhood associations.
This is pie-in-the-sky, but it would be great if the city could forgive the back-taxes by carving off a chunk of that huge parking lot to set up as a small park/outdoor marketplace. That would really give that huge, sprawling commercial intersection a nice looking focal point.
Well, the council finally got West 930 Holmes out the way after two years. I also remember the debate internally within council was whether or not to hold a second public hearing, which is what the previous LSJ article was talking about, which would have pushed the decision back. It was a delaying tactic to try and kill the rezoning. So, this gets that out of the way. Of course, it was a 5-3 vote with the usual suspects:
Honestly, my only interest in this was as a proxy to demonstrate how some on council see rezoning: as a hill to die on. Rezoning for something like this only allows for the owner to negotiate a possible sell; it shouldn't have been seen as some kind of approval for the proposed project, which would have to come back before the city administration, anyway, for a building permit at the very least, and most likely before the city legislature for the approval of incentives at which point a debate over the merits of the proposal would be appropriate.
I'm not particularly crazy about a storage facility, here, but I also thought the current owner bent over backwards to compromise on this one most, notably the inclusion of the perimeter of the property being left alone so that it can continue to be marketed as commercial space and also that the conditional rezoning bans the new owner from putting up a chain-link fence around the interior of the property for the storage facility.
At the end of the day, this had sat vacant way too long and there was no way the building was going to be reused as Class A office space. But judging by the fight over this, you'd have thought they were debating allowing a strip club or giant marijuana dispensary in the building. lol It's literally going to be a higher-class storage facility set way back from the street, which will then allow us to move on to full vision for the rest of the area. But, here's the bottom line: the Form-Based Code comes up for a public hearing at next month's council meeting. As currently zoned in the Form-Base Code, something like this wouldn't even be a debate, because it couldn't have been developed by-right. This would have largely taken care of this proposal, because the developer likely wouldn't have been brought this project to council given that the zoning of the area ould have prevented something like this. In the Former-Base Code, the entire area is zoned MX-2 Community Center. Among other things, it would require developers at the street corners in this area (MLK and Holmes, Holmes and Washington, etc.) to orient new buildings to the corner (75% of their frontage on primary streets, and 25% on secondary streets). Even more than that, spot-zoning is particularly discouraged in FBC, so the developer would have had to have made an even stronger case than he has that a rezoning like this was absolutely necessary and that he'd exhausted all other possibilities.
I like the part where the owner says he did not pay his taxes because he did not like the way the city was treating him. I did not know this was a legal option. I would tend to agree that in this case, something new is better than what is there now. I can not help but wonder just who are these people who need all this storage space? Is the market for these facilities endless? I think there are more self-storage businesses than pot shops or even Quality Diaries!
Really? I've noticed maybe a small increase in the last decade or two, but they don't seem particularly ubiquitous to me.
It is true that I have only lived here for a couple of years but it seems like there a lot. During that time I have seen a new self-storage businesses open at the old Ford dealership on MLK and another on Hosmer. Maybe I just do not have a lot of junk in the trunk to store so they seem kind of useless to me. Having a functioning business in a formerly vacant building is better than an empty building, but this sort of business does not offer many jobs and add little to the neighborhoods in which they are located.