I can't tell you how much I've seen the area tangibly feel more crowded and congested both on the streets and on the sidewalks and later into the night than usual. I'm not just talking about the revitalization downtown, but in the suburbs where for much of the second half of this decade everything had kind of frozen in time. I'm not sure if the growth has happened soon enough to show up in Census counts -- most of what I've seen and felt seems to have started taking place, literally, in the first month of this year, but it'll show up in subsequent estimates.
Kind of tying into that is Lansing Delta Township Assembly (LDT), which brought 600 new residents (and their families) to the area earlier this year... Quote:
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Well, Market Place is back on. This isn't much of a surprise. The council illegally blocked the project by not keeping up their end of the bargain:
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Y mas...
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Unique Partnership Kicks Off Restoration of Historic Eastside Lansing Homes
CAPITAL GAINS, 11/3/2010 Lansing Community College, the Allen Neighborhood Center (ANC) and the Ingham County Land Bank have partnered to form Restoration Works!, a neighborhood stabilization and home restoration project. The project is centered on the restoration of two historic homes in Lansing’s Eastside, at 1501 and 1512 E. Kalamazoo Street. The two foreclosed homes are owned by the Land Bank and were scheduled for demolition before the partnership project came to fruition. Restoration Works! is an effort to preserve the history of the homes, both longstanding in the neighborhood. The restoration work will be done by LCC Environment, Design and Building Technologies Department (EDBT) students as part of LCC’s Technical Careers Division. Members of ANC’s Housing Caucus and LCC students will be giving tours of these houses on Nov. 4, after a 10:30 a.m. press conference. ---- I live on this block and happy to see the partnership come up with a creative vision for these highly visible homes. |
The MEDC approved a local and state tax capture that will help facilitate the development to 200 Albert Avenue in East Lansing according to this article at MLive.com:
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November 21
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4144/...dd01701f_z.jpg Really, the outside work has been done for a few months, now. I was a little irked they had turned off the external lighting the night I decided to take the picture. In other news SOBI Square has now been cancelled, the developer claims a victim of the recession. SOBI Square was a 52-unit residential infill development that was layed out over a series of small condo buildings (2-3 stories) attached condos (rowhomes) and around a handful of existing single-family homes on the block. The land was foreclosed on, recently, and the developer didn't even bother to tell the city until they found out pretty much on accident. |
Kind of sad to hear about SOBI square. Any word on the Lenawee?
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The Lenawee was just a concept to begin with. I emailed the developers a few years back and the thing was on hold, then.
I'm actually rather pleased that one didn't happened as plan. There was just so much wrong with the plan at that particular location. |
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There are so many ways to interpret those numbers. Now that unemployment benefits won't get extended, it's likely the number will continue to drop because the indicator won't pick them up. I bet we're still more like 20 percent unemployed/underemployed/dropped out of the game. Still, I'm pretty excited about a leaner, more diversified economy in Michigan. Maybe we'll get there in the next 10 or 15 years. I think we've finally pretty much bottomed out in terms of auto manufacturing jobs despite the recent minor gains (Volt, etc.).
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This is moving faster than I originally thought it would:
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http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3473/...3bc_z.jpg?zz=1 Self-taken |
Very good news...especially the last sentence too. The more downtown workers, the more downtown residents and businesses to follow.
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I realize the trends in the housing market have people favoring the flexibility/mobility of renting, therefore driving the rent prices up. But it's still a bit ridiculous for Lansing. $800-900/mo for a small studio might fly in Ann Arbor, but that's pretty astronomical for downtown Lansing given the lack of amenities. This just proves to me that there's a growing demand for downtown living and only a few developers are coming around to the "urban living" concept, still hesitant to take what is thought of as a big risk compared to green field development. Personally I'm not a fan of the Gillespie-type developments of 100+ units. I'd like to see some 10 or 20 unit buildings going in all around the core by some smaller developers. Townsend's developments seem to be more on par with a sustainable mixed use core, but some of his development proposals have fallen through lately. Another thing looming in downtown Lansing is the impending retirements of many State of Michigan employees. My office, for example, is expecting about a 15-20% retirement rate by January. Most of the older workers in State government live out in the burbs. Almost all of the younger people I've known to come in to replace those older workers (including myself) live in the direct vicinity of downtown. I have a feeling there is going to be even more demand for downtown living in the coming months due to this trend. I don't think many of these corporate moves downtown are going to have as large of effect as one might think on housing because they are staffed by middle aged people, particularly the BCBS type office jobs. They will absolutely have an a positive outcome on downtown businesses, but I highly doubt many of those workers are going to change their living arrangements due to a corporate move of a couple miles. |
Yeah, the demand is definitely there. The most recent downtown market study showed that the immediate downtown area could easily absorb another 300 to 400 additional rental units over the next four years, and it's well known that just about every one of the major urban living developments downtown have a waiting list.
Developers have been decrying the tight credit market for their lack of developing over the past three or so years. I do wonder how much truth there is to that, and whether they are just content at the moment sitting on what are all obviously and highly profitable developments they squeaked in before the national economic downtown and not willing to take the risk. Yeah, I definitely like Townsend's stuff better than Gillespie's. Gillespie seems to do kind of lower-quality (or at least less sustainable), Disneyfied urban living. And, because of that and and given the state of the economy it'd definitely be worth it now for these developers to sprinkle a 10-unit development here and a 10-unit development there. I can also see why Gillespie doesn't like to do smaller stuff. He'd have to charge higher prices per unit and have to increase the overall quality of his stuff if he wanted it to sell at the higher price. On the price, I was actually surprised to hear about the increases in rents, so I went and looked it up and was shocked. You know have one-bedrooms running for $900 at The Arbaugh, $1,200 at Motor Wheels, high $800 at Prudden Place... These used to be bargains. This is definitely an argument for increasing the number of units to get these prices lower. There are so few options and so few developers they are charging whatever they want. |
Merging lane to be added on U.S. 127
$1.3M project is for stretch between Lake Lansing Road, Grand River Ave. Barbara Wieland • bwieland@lsj.com • December 13, 2010 Quote:
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After hitting some roadblocks this summer and fall, both the Knapps Center redevelopment and the Marketplace (looks like the name has been combined) development are moving forward, again. So, finally some more construction coming down the pipe, next year:
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Eastwood Towne Center to expand:
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Development...but crappy development unfortunately. I long for the day when proposals and announcements of this type of malls and parking will never occur
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I'd not mind much if they were going to consolidate the surface parking into one or two garages given how far out from the core this is. But, to add more surface parking and a garage is just plain overkill. I wonder if Lansingites know that this isn't the norm for most "lifestyle centers" around the country, today?
BTW, here's the master plan for the area for anyone interested in seeing "Downtown" Lansing Township: http://www.eastwooddda.org/documents/largemap.pdf http://www.eastwooddda.org/activity.shtml It looks like they are generally following their masterplan for the area, except that they are seeming to allow for more parking than planned. |
I looked at the development plan and just found it hopeless new urbanism. There's no compromising for good urban development, whether is decking or hiding surface parking. I feel in the planning field discussions of "creating sense of place" have been interpreted poorly into stage-set town centers. With the current generation flocking to real downtowns, you'd think they'd try to put together something...you know... a bit more real.
And trust me, this kind of crap is no stranger to where I live either. They'll try to cram this stuff onto an old industrial site. Their reasoning? Well because it was a steel mill, that makes it okay to build 1000 parking spaces...so as long as we build at least two sides up to the street. That's why I said I wish this type of development would go away..for the sake of Lansing Township and my own Chicago. |
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