Flint development news

[robk1982]

http://www.mlive.com/business/mid-mi...repe_cart.html

Flint friends to roll out crepe cart in downtown Flint
by Melissa Burden | The Flint Journal
Friday September 04, 2009, 8:55 AM

FLINT, Michigan -- That thin folded pancake filled with lox or cinnamon and sugar that you might find on the streets of Paris is coming soon to the streets of downtown Flint.

In fact, you can get your first taste of the Flint Crepe Co. at 7:33 a.m. on Labor Day, when friends Robb Klaty and Tim Goodrich plan to roll out their crepe cart at the corner of Court and Fifth streets.

Klaty, 36, and Goodrich, 33, admit that French crepes on the street in Flint might be a weird idea.

"We are looking to meet a demand that we think is there," Klaty said of the crepes that will sell for around $4 to $7.

The business duo will operate their to-go business 7:30 a.m.-2 p.m. Monday through Friday from the parking lot of the Flint Area Chamber of Commerce, 927 S. Saginaw St., using a covered seven-foot stainless steel cart.

"It has a double crepe griddle," Goodrich said, adding crepes can be cooked in about two minutes.

Boy, if there was ever a story about how far downtown Flint has come in the last 10 years, this is it. A crepe cart? Awesome!! I'll have to go down there now that I'll be working somewhat nearby.

The location is the parking lot of the old Williamson campaign headquarters, which was recently bought by the newly formed Flint Area Chamber of Commerce. The county jail, courthouse, and Flint City Hall are across the streets, so there is a decent amount of foot traffic here.

[DeBaliviere]

I think it's great that UM-Flint and other universities are making such a commitment to the city's urban core.

In St. Louis, UM-St. Louis (UMSL) is located in north county, far from the city itself. If it, or even parts of it, were located in St. Louis - like UM-Flint or UW-Milwaukee - it would have such a great impact on the city.

[robk1982]

http://blog.mlive.com/get-healthy-in...ter_moves_fo.h

Hurley Medical Center moves forward with planned emergency room expansion
Posted by Elizabeth Shaw | THE FLINT JOURNAL June 23, 2009 16:00PM

FLINT, Michigan -- Genesee County's busiest emergency room plans to double in size by 2011.

Hurley Medical Center's Board of Directors voted Monday night to approve the basic schematic design of a $30-million expansion for the area's only Level 1 Trauma Center.

"The goal is to build a brand-new, from-scratch emergency trauma center that bascially doubles the size of the facility we have right now," said Hurley CEO Patrick Wardell. "We'll use the one we have now until we build the new one, then we'll turn the lights off and move over."

The expansion has been in the works for years, with an ER created to accommodate 55,000 patients a year that routinely handles nearly 80,000 patients a year, including some of the most seriously injured accident victims in the region.

The old ER will be converted to expand the hospital's outpatient services as well as a clinical unit for cases where patients can be cared for and observed for 24 hours without actual hospital admission.

The new ER would take over the entire main floor of the east wing, which is the long corridor off the parking garage, then extend out another 25,000 square feet toward Fifth Avenue for a total of 50,000 square feet.

The main lobby would also be relocated to face Fifth Avenue.

"What is now the front of the building essentially becomes the back of the building where we focus all the ambulance traffic," said Wardell. "Besides improved traffic flow, it embraces the revitalized downtown by connecting us more to Fifth Avenue and downtown."

The project would be financed through loans, not through a countywide operating millage on the August ballot.

The only way the millage plays a role is in improving the hospital's overall financial picture so that it could borrow money at a lower interest rate.

"Right now the rates we'd have to pay are affordable but very dear and expensive, about nine percent, which is tax-exempt," said Wardell. "If we had the financial stability of the millage, that would increase the hospital's credit worthiness so it would only cost us 5 percent. That's $2.4 million less a year in financing costs."

The hospital plans to work with local contractors and labor for the $19-million construction phase, as an economic multiplier for the area.

More detailed plans for the state's Certificate of Need process won't be approved until mid-August or September, when health care providers hope to learn the outcome of more proposed reductions in reimbursement rates for Medicaid and Medicare.

"The reason we didn't ask the board to approve the whole project at once was because so much is happening at the state and federal level that won't be clear until then," said Wardell. "The board could conceivably still back away from this in a month and a half if dramatic reductions in reimbursement become a reality."

There was talk about tearing down the oldest part of the hospital (the north wing?) and building a new tower, but I haven't heard anything about that for a while. I guess this ER expansion will have to do for now.

[Rizzo]

Instead of posting some Flint development photos here, I made a city photo thread here:
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=172626

[robk1982]

http://www.mlive.com/business/mid-mi...ice_to_re.html

Internal Revenue Service to move a mile north on Saginaw Street in Flint
by Melissa Burden | The Flint Journal
Wednesday August 19, 2009, 2:00 PM
submitted renderingThis is what the new Internal Revenue Service building, 901 N. Saginaw St., will look like. It should open next fall.

FLINT, Michigan -- Come next fall, if you want tax forms or need to make a payment with the Internal Revenue Service, you'll have to travel about a mile up Saginaw Street.

The U.S. General Services Administration in late July awarded a contract to Elba Road Development LLC of Lapeer for a new IRS Taxpayer Assistance Center. That group will construct a 14,470-square-foot, one-story building at 901 N. Saginaw St., said David Wilkinson, a regional spokesman for the GSA.

The IRS and its 44 employees have outgrown its leased office, 815 S. Saginaw St. at Court Street, its home since 1995. The office is one of six such centers across Michigan.

"The IRS really needed more parking and accessibly," said Donald Schaffer, a sales associate for Siegel Realty in Flint Township, who added there is a bus stop near the front of the new site.

Schaffer assembled the team that won the GSA bid including architects CHMP Inc. in Grand Blanc Township and developer Elba Road Development LLC, led by Clifford Harvey. Harvey is co-owner of Case Construction Co. in Flint Township.

Two vacant buildings at 901 and 915 N. Saginaw at Louisa Street, owned by the Greater Flint Outreach Center formerly known as Inner City Christian Outreach Center Inc. and Westside Full Gospel, will be torn down, Schaffer said.

That's welcome news to Shalinda Hall, 26, of Flint whose mother lives on Saginaw Street, just north of the vacant buildings.

"A lot of empty buildings bring rats and stuff," she said.

The new $2.2 million to $2.5 million IRS building should be completed for an October or November 2010 opening, Schaffer said.

"The building is going to keep with the historical theme (of Smith Village)," he said. "It's going to be a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified silver building."

Demolition of the vacant buildings should begin this fall or early winter, with construction likely to start in March, Schaffer said.

Schaffer said developers also will buy a vacant lot from the Genesee County Land Bank off Chippewa Street for a 48-spot parking lot. Parking also will be available on Saginaw Street and across Saginaw Street, he said.

The GSA received more than a dozen proposals and two were in the final round, Wilkinson said.

"The award was given to the proposal that was most responsive to the (IRS') requirements and it also it was the lowest price," Wilkinson said.

The IRS will lease the space for 10 years at $395,691 a year, Wilkinson said. That's more than its old lease of $259,000 a year.

Jim Tubbs, part owner in the building at 815 S. Saginaw St., said that while the IRS won't be moving for about 14 months, he and partners are working to secure another lease for the about 10,000-square-foot building.

"We think we're going to be able to find someone to take that space," Tubbs said.

"We feel very comfortable with that building in that location because that is a premier building in downtown Flint," added Tubbs, whose group also bid on constructing a new building for the IRS.

Rendering from the article page

[Rizzo]

These two will be demoed. Kind of sucks they have some substance and good detailing.

http://maps.google.com/maps?client=f...01.7,,0,-12.27


The LEED rating is laughable in this matter. They are demoing two buildings that would likely be partially diverted from landfill by standard anyway, and they are constructing additional parking offsite which somewhat cheats the system, except that it's built on previously developed land. Renovation of course is very expensive (in the case of the IRS) but would have achieved many points. I just wish they would have chosen other vacant land and acquire more points creatively.

[robk1982]

Another point of reference for people: this is across Saginaw St. from Windmill Place. My preference would have been to build on one of the many surface lots in the south end of downtown if a renovation of an existing building was out of the question. It would have been great to get some new construction off of Saginaw St. to start filling in the rest of downtown. In fact, it would have been FANTASTIC to have the Social Security Administration and IRS share a building in downtown, instead of two really boring buildings out on the fringes.

Anyways, another article about a rather small thing, but it's cool none-the-less.

Flint resident helps bring downtown's Grand Fountain back to life
Posted by Kristin Longley | The Flint Journal August 13, 2009 12:05PM

FLINT, Michigan -- It had been 17 years since the waters of downtown Flint cascaded over the Grand Fountain's elaborate network of concrete cliffs and steps.

Then Dave Johnson came along.

The innovative Flint resident cobbled some parts together so that on Wednesday -- for the first time since 1992 -- the repaired pump hauled river water into the picturesque fountain.

It took Johnson, who's a consultant for the Downtown Development Authority, and his team three years of reverse engineering, scouring the Internet for parts and plain ol' trial-and-error to get the waters flowing again, he said.

Now, the fountain that once was a potential target for demolition is drawing spectators as people flock downtown for Back to the Bricks.

"Whenever I could scrape up some parts I worked on it," said Johnson, 54. "It still needs some funding to run permanently, but for now we get to enjoy it."

Last year, Johnson and his helpers also fixed the park's water wall, which hadn't been operational in 24 years, he said. They also painted and repaired the park's lampposts.

The work was funded by the Ruth Mott Foundation.

Larry Ford of the DDA said Johnson's work is good news for Flint.

"He's quite a fellow," Ford said. "It looks great."

The fountain was the subject of a 2007 report from a New York consulting firm that suggested lower expectations for Riverbank Park, or at least giving up on resurrecting a couple of major park elements.

The study by Project for Public Spaces said the fountain would be expensive to fix and recommended abandoning the water elements and closing off the park's north-bank lower level for security reasons, according to Flint Journal files.

Johnson, who is a self-described self-taught mechanic, said it's hard to tell what it will cost to fully resurrect the fountain. The electrical room had been 6 feet under water at one point and the pump and switch were broken.

He estimated long-term repairs could cost between $5,000 and $100,000 "depending on what you want to do to it."

He said a complete overhaul would be worth it to help bring life to a once-polluted and scarred riverbank.

Johnson said he moved to Flint from his native Hamtramck 20 years ago, and wants to see it succeed.

"I like Flint," he said. "I like the feel, I like the people."

For some history on Riverbank Park, here's an excerpt from a 1999 Flint Journal story by Dave Graham:

"(In the 1970s) the river was filled with trash: old tires, rusty refrigerators, discarded mattresses and an occasional murder weapon.

Beautification received serious attention when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers started work on a flood control project downtown that would have turned the stream into a concrete ditch.

Pressure in 1975 from city officials and the new Flint Environmental Action Team Foundation persuaded the Corps to revise the plans to allow for a $22-million beautification scheme, with islands, artworks, fountains and other water features, plus an amphitheater.

Many were wowed when it opened in 1979, but some chuckled when one of its features - a towering, yellow, abstract steel sculpture - toppled in a windstorm just four months later.

The pace of downtown redevelopment picked up when James W. Rutherford was elected mayor in November 1975 to the first of two terms under Flint's restructured strong-mayor form of government.

'A lot of things were going on downtown, including the campus and the riverfront project,' Rutherford said. 'I thought they were good ideas, and I knew we had to do more.'"

Photo courtesy of Hayward (hope you don't mind). It might have just been started the day you took that photo

[Rizzo]

^ My thoughts exactly. Heck this would fit perfectly where that grass lot is on the Mott block...you know the unplanned demolition of the city club.

[robk1982]

I'm still holding out hope that the economy recovers enough in the next couple of years so that HealthPlus will move downtown and build on that lot.

[DeBaliviere]

Originally Posted by Hayward

These two will be demoed. Kind of sucks they have some substance and good detailing.

http://maps.google.com/maps?client=f...01.7,,0,-12.27


The LEED rating is laughable in this matter. They are demoing two buildings that would likely be partially diverted from landfill by standard anyway, and they are constructing additional parking offsite which somewhat cheats the system, except that it's built on previously developed land. Renovation of course is very expensive (in the case of the IRS) but would have achieved many points. I just wish they would have chosen other vacant land and acquire more points creatively.

Boo.

[LMich]

This is strange. Detroit had a small crepe take-out place open up a year or so, ago.

[Rizzo]

Originally Posted by LMich

This is strange. Detroit had a small crepe take-out place open up a year or so, ago.

It's a business that has low startup costs and very low overhead. If it fails, it's really no big deal at all. Sell the equipment, and pay off the loan if you even had one.

Love crepes though. Good Girls Go to Paris is great in Detroit. I know this could definitely be good for Flint.

[hudkina]

They just added another location in Midtown.

[LMich]

I get that, but one could just as easily (if not more easily) open a hotdog stand which always have an instant built-in market. I just didn't realize that crepes were that popular a fast-food.

[Rizzo]

Being original is what helps. You can get a hotdog anywhere. This is something Flint doesn't have and is sure to find its niche.

Basically what I'm saying are crepe stands/counters are becoming the new Chipotle and Pinkberry trends in fast food.

[LMich]

Originally Posted by Hayward

Being original is what helps. You can get a hotdog anywhere. This is something Flint doesn't have and is sure to find its niche.

Basically what I'm saying are crepe stands/counters are becoming the new Chipotle and Pinkberry trends in fast food.

I wasn't make some value judgement on crepes, guys (I don't even like hot dogs). I was simply surprised to see how popular they've become.

[Rizzo]

Originally Posted by LMich

I wasn't make some value judgement on crepes, guys (I don't even like hot dogs). I was simply surprised to see how popular they've become.

LOL, I know. I'm surprised too. It just makes me wonder what food specialty will be next to gain popularity on city street corners.


Nice room uaarkson

[uaarkson]

Has anyone ever snuck into Genesee Towers? Just curious.

[robk1982]

Originally Posted by uaarkson

Has anyone ever snuck into Genesee Towers? Just curious.

I'm guessing the farthest you could get would be the parking garage. I'm sure the lobby would locked and probably has some sort of security in some place so I doubt anyone would try it. You have to remember, the building was occupied until 2001 so it's not like sneaking into the Durant prior to renovation.


BTW, I believe Rowe Engineering should be moving into their building this week. I was down there a few weeks ago to eat at Wise Guyz Pizza (great pizza!!) and the building looked great with all the construction equipment gone at street level. Wonder how long it will take for a restaurant or retail place (drug store?) to go in there.

[hudkina]

I love crepes. Unlike hot dogs, crepes are good for breakfast or lunch.