Lansing-East Lansing, MI Development

[LMich]

DTN has out some refined preliminary massings for the Park District on the westside of downtown EL:

From Valley Court Park:



Looking north above Grand River:



Albert Avenue looking east:



Albert Avenue looking west:



...

The Lansing Township-based rental property magnate plans for 490 apartments (between 900 and 1,000 beds), a 120-room hotel, 50,000 square feet of retail space, a new parking garage and about 900 parking spaces. The total size of the project amounts to 1 million square feet, DTN President Tom Kuschinski told the council.

An exclusively residential building sits at the corner of Evergreen and Albert avenues. It sits east of Valley Court Park, with space planned for a future farmer's market on the park's eastern edge, according to Kuschinski. A majority of the new Park District's retail space will be focused near the corner of Abbot Road and Albert Avenue.

...

The regional apartment giant also is in the process of developing a 124-luxury apartment building as part of Lansing Township's The Heights at Eastwood development.

Additionally, DTN plans to raze the original Biggby location at 270 W. Grand River Ave in East Lansing, replacing it with a mixed-use development including 148 apartments, a parking structure with 190 spaces and 5,000 square feet of retail space, half of which would belong to the coffee chain.

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This is probably the densest thing proposed at the site since this thing began planning in 2006. This is a pretty good plan considering how irregular the blocks are and what they have to work around.

[subterranean]

Cool. But the 'Master Plan' does not align with the renders. In the top image, the units along Evergreen look to be row houses. Those units look like mid-rise apartment complex(es) in the other images. Or am I missing something?

At any rate, glad to see these. Interested to see how this will affect Michigan Ave.

[LMich]

That's the "ground level" site plan showing everything on the first floor of each of these properties. EVERY building in this complex has ground floor retail. The buildings along Evergreen and Albert are multi-family residential buildings with ground floor retail.

Here's the "upper floor" site plan:



What I really like is instead of just having the garage for the complex stand alone, they worked another multi-family residential building onto it.

[subterranean]

Ahhh, I see. EL, slowly extending its little downtown LOL. And I just noticed that Evergreen connects to Grand River now, but will be eliminated. I used to love that little side street.

[LMich]

Yeah, but with this density, it be crazy to have that intersection so close to Grand River and Abbot and Grand River and Michigan. The traffic can already get horrendous in this area. It looks like the plan to to funnel a lot of traffic along an extended Albert (which will uses parts of Evergreen and Valley Court, it looks like) and dump it out quite a bit to the west of this busy crossroads, which is the only way this thing works. Looks like things will get a lot more busy around Valley Court Park, but it's definitely a necessary trade-off.

[LMich]

Red Cedar Renaissance, the massive project on the old Red Cedar Golf course across from Frandor on the far eastside, moves forward. It seems that the Jeromes dropped out of the development, but it gained Continental Real Estate out of Columbus, OH, which has don some urban riverfront development in Pittsburgh, apparently:

Partnership announced to develop former Red Cedar golf course on Lansing/East Lansing border

By Jay Scott Smith | MLive.com

December 12, 2013

LANSING – The city will team with the Lansing-based Ferguson Development Group, which is led by Joel Ferguson, and Columbus, Ohio-based Continental Real Estate to revitalize the former Red Cedar Golf Club along the border of Lansing and East Lansing.

The $125 million project, to be funded by the two developers, will be a mixed use development combining residential and retail. It will break ground by next spring, developers say.

...

Continental's previous work includes an expansive riverfront and residential project along the Ohio, Monongahela, and Allegheny rivers in Pittsburgh.

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The next step includings holding three public charettes, while the county drain commissioner continues his work in reworking the polluted Montgomery Drain which runs through and under the site before reaching the Red Cedar River.

[subterranean]

Originally Posted by LMich

Red Cedar Renaissance, the massive project on the old Red Cedar Golf course across from Frandor on the far eastside, moves forward. It seems that the Jeromes dropped out of the development, but it gained Continental Real Estate out of Columbus, OH, which has don some urban riverfront development in Pittsburgh, apparently:



The next step includings holding three public charettes, while the county drain commissioner continues his work in reworking the polluted Montgomery Drain which runs through and under the site before reaching the Red Cedar River.

More charettes, eh? I wonder what they did with the data from the first ones. Hopefully they have a professional and impartial facilitator this time around instead of ANC employees/friends. Given the magnitude of this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and the tradeoff of selling public land, citizens shouldn't accept anything but a top-notch project.

[LMich]

You talking about the charette they just finished? I imagine the developers might use it as a base, though, to be fair, that was more a charette for the entire corridor. This will be specifically for this site. I know that when they showed the proposal a few days ago on the news, they showed the original computer generated renderings from the original plan for this, which put the four-story apartment buildings up against Michigan, with most of the site being greenspace.

Who knows how this will turn out, though. Ferguson is not exactly known for being a progressive urban developer, and I looked into the other developer out of Columbus, and Pittsburgh North Shore leaves quite a bit to be desired, and I'm talking everything from actual architectural design to the the layout.

Some things that will disappoint from the get-go, however, is since this clearly lies in a major floodplain - anyone who had been by the site in spring on any given year knows that the golf course is barely useable that time of year - you can expect a lot of first floor parking like all of the other apartment buildings in the area. Realistically, they shouldn't be building anything, here, and should be developing within Frandor proper, which is barely higher grown, but enough that they could drain it better. But, the development is really being used to pay for required drain improvements.

[subterranean]

Originally Posted by LMich

You talking about the charette they just finished? I imagine the developers might use it as a base, though, to be fair, that was more a charette for the entire corridor.

No. I understand the Tri-County/NCI corridor charrettes should play a role; however, they held multiple one-day charrettes last year that were site specific. They were held at Foster Community Center and I participated in one of them. It was a little rough from the start, but I was positive because the partner developer made some good faith attempts to include our suggestions into the preliminary site visioning. The guy actually flew around the country and looked at some of the sites I recommended he look at as a baseline for what I thought the site could be. Now we hear from this story that he's dropped out. I wonder what happened.

[LMich]

I'd totally forgotten there was already a charette for this site. Wow. You must be talking about the Jeromes (I think Chris, the son, was more publically involved). Yeah, this has left me a bit confused, too. Though, they still own the car dealerships on the corridor, so I bet they still have something in mind for this off-site development.

So, what developments did you recommend as examples for this project?

[subterranean]

You're right, it was the Jeromes. I'm not sure of what sites he visited in total, but my recommendations included taking a look at the form based codes and subsequent development of downtown Birmingham. I also gave him some more developer-palatable examples of mixed use new construction. Specifically, I recommended he look at Birkdale Village in Huntersville, NC. This is very much a lifestyle center, but they got the residential mix right. Not perfect, but, as I said, sometimes you have to show developers in Michigan that more is possible than simply throwing down garden apartments and a CVS.

[ColDayMan]

Just an FYI, Continental Real Estate is a joke locally in Columbus. They are the worst firm in the area. They design Giant Eagles for Christ sakes...

http://www.continental-realestate.co...d-Gateway.aspx

[LMich]

Originally Posted by ColDayMan

Just an FYI, Continental Real Estate is a joke locally in Columbus. They are the worst firm in the area. They design Giant Eagles for Christ sakes...

http://www.continental-realestate.co...d-Gateway.aspx

I had a bad feeling about them when I saw they were involved in Pittsburgh's North Shore. Still, since so much of the site isn't buildable, because of its location and requirements that most of it remain natural area (this is really about rebuilding a local stream so that it filters out pollution before it reaches the Red Cedar River), the site will have to be fairly dense. Everything fronting Michigan in preliminary plans will be multi-story.

[LMich]

I'm still really ambivalent about this project besides the deal the City of Lansing struck with the tribe that would fund college for every Lansing School District graduate, but a federal appeals court threw out an injuction against the opponents of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians trying to block them from opening a casino in Lansing:

Federal appeals court allows Lansing casino project to proceed

By Lindsay VanHulle | Lansing State Journal

December 18, 2013

An Upper Peninsula American Indian tribe will move forward with its plans to build a tribal casino in downtown Lansing after a federal appeals court overturned a lower court’s ruling that essentially froze the project.

A three-judge panel with the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati ruled Wednesday that a federal district judge in Grand Rapids erred by granting the state an injunction halting the proposed Kewadin Lansing casino because it “lacked jurisdiction” and based its ruling on “contingent future events that may never occur.”

The Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians now can proceed with its application to the U.S. Department of the Interior to have land it bought from the city of Lansing held in trust for gaming. That hurdle must be cleared before a casino can be built adjacent to the Lansing Center downtown, near the corner of Cedar Street and Michigan Avenue.

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Still a long ways off, but this is a major victory for the tribe.

[LMich]

In stark contrast to the casino, another economic project that will pay dividends in Mid-Michigan for decades to come, it appears as if the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) didn't just make the appropriations cut with the new budget, but surprisingly made it out whole getting every last dime it requested, and allowing actual construction to finally start.

U.S. funding bill includes $55M for MSU science facility

Marisa Schultz | Detroit News Washington Bureau

January 14, 2014

Washington — An appropriations bill released late Monday includes full funding for a highly touted Michigan State University science facility that will allow construction to begin this year, according to Michigan’s two senators.

The $1 trillion appropriations deal reached by House and Senate negotiators will include $55 million to fund MSU’s Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) project. MSU won the cutting-edge nuclear science project in a competitive bid in 2008, but troubles with Department of Energy federal funding have hampered the project’s takeoff.

Congress already approved the overall budget figure in a bipartisan deal in December, but the appropriations legislation fills in the details for agency spending. Congress could vote on the measure as early as next week.

Sens. Carl Levin, D-Detroit, and Debbie Stabenow, D-Lansing, expressed relief Monday that the project will be funded at the levels they requested.

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The heart of the MSU facility would be a high-intensity linear accelerator that is 1,000 times more powerful than accelerators at nuclear science facilities in the nation, including those at MSU's National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory. The accelerator would be built underground next to the existing lab.

“FRIB is essential to America’s continued leadership in nuclear science,” Levin said in a statement. “It’s a powerful statement about Michigan’s role in maintaining that leadership.”

[subterranean]

This is really good news.

[LMich]

I remember we took a field trip to the cyclotron in either in either eight or ninth grade. It's not much of a tourist destination - and even less so for kids, lol - but I did remember being impressed with the place, if only because this kind of work was being done at MSU. Michigan State routinely is either the first or second top program in the country for nuclear physics, and this should move it into undisputed first place when this thing is up and running.

[LMich]

This is huge, and something I'd been complaining about for years. What has to be one of the largest set of connecting parking lots in a downtown-area in this state, looks as if it may finally become something worthwhile:

From Yamasaki to reality

by RJ Wolcott | Lansing City Pulse

January 20, 2014

Monday, Jan. 20 — In searching for plans to promote sustainability and ecologically friendly infrastructure in Lansing, Bob Johnson, the city’s director of planning and neighborhood development, found inspiration in the form of a long-shelved city plan from 1987.

The Yamasaki Plan — named after Minoru Yamasaki, the influential architect behind several projects in Michigan as well as the designer behind the original World Trade Centers — proposed a greener Lansing. Featuring significant water features and cultivated shrubbery, the park-like plan envisioned a massive mitten, accompanied by the Great Lakes, to serve as a reminder of the state at large within the capital. The showcase was proposed in the area between the Capitol Building and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

Last week, city officials received word from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that Lansing was one of three state capitals selected to receive support to design and implement new sustainable space, a move that Johnson hopes will spark an environmental renaissance in the capital region.

A 14-acre parking lot situated between state offices and the Hall of Justice — in the same area as the Yamasaki Plan — is the target of the planned renovation. EPA officials hope to transform the sprawling concrete slab into a green space while offering tangible benefits to Lansing. The Yamasaki Plan will serve as inspiration, Johnson said.

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The next few months will be critical for the project, as city and state officials work to determine the scope of the project and consultation with the environmental agency gets underway.

Regional businesses and consultants will be brought on, according to the EPA, and any interested parties are invited to check FedBizOpps.gov for opportunities. After several design charrettes and generating final design recommendations, EPA officials estimate the project will take six to nine months.

Crediting former Gov. James Blanchard as well as Minoru Yamasaki & Associates, Johnson said he wants to get residents excited about the opportunity to add additional park space for the entire state to utilize.

Envisioning crowded buses of students scrambling to find their hometowns within the mitten, Johnson and others have high hopes for the Capital Park project.

“The point is that this belongs to the residents and this will serve as a prime example for visiting students and visitors to see our state,” Johnson said.

[JonathanGRR]

Wow, this would be great for the city! Hopefully they do something with the parking lot on the west side of the capitol building also.

[subterranean]

Wow! This would be cool! Wish there was room for the amphitheater, but there's already the hall of justice and a memorial there. That area is such a huge dead zone! This would be better, though, if they activated the edges with draw activities, commercial or not.