[LMich]

BCBS has finally completed their consolidation to downtown Lansing. With Class A space having been in the single digits for downtown for years, now, I'm really wondering when we might see a new office high rise?

Blue Cross Blue Shield opens new Lansing site, relocates 300 workers

By Melissa Domsic | Lansing State Journal

September 13, 2011

Michael Mahdi was at work by 3 a.m. Monday baking hundreds of bagels.

It was an extra-busy morning for Mahdi, who owns The New Daily Bagel on Washington Square in downtown Lansing. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan ordered a couple hundred bagels for its employees' first day in their downtown Lansing office.

The Detroit insurer moved about 300 Lansing-area employees from a site on South Creyts Road in Delta Township and two small offices in the area into Accident Fund Holdings Inc.'s former 130,000-square-foot home office at 232 S. Capitol Ave.

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Employees are excited too. Lavora Barnes looks forward to walking to lunch, rather than getting into her car and driving to lunch in Delta Township.

"It's a terrific downtown here in Lansing, (with) places to go to lunch, lots of people to see, lots of activity and movement," said Barnes, the company's public policy manager.

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Downtown felt a boost last year when Michigan State Police brought about 500 workers to its new headquarters at Grand Avenue and Kalamazoo Street.

The Blue Cross relocation comes on the heels of Accident Fund's move to the redeveloped Ottawa Power Station in April.

Accident Fund, which is owned by Blue Cross, employs 650 in Lansing and plans to hire 500 workers during the next 10 years.

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