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...

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:

Y mas...

More residents for the city and metro area.

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:

The 8-story building will include 49 loft-style apartments on the top seven floors, and construction is set to begin in May.

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?

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.

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.).

This is moving faster than I originally thought it would:

Y mas...

Photo of the former MDA Building:

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.

Agreed. Although downtown is severely limited in its variety of housing. In recent years we've seen an uptick in downtown rental rehabs above storefronts, as well as newish developments/conversions like the Arbaugh and the Stadium District, but I still think downtown is ripe for some truly diversified multifamily housing of various sizes and types. Some of the loft conversions are really nice, but their pricing is such that you can buy a home in one of the adjacent neighborhoods for half the monthly cost and two or three times the space.

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

http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/a...ed-on-U.S.-127

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:

The perennial greening of Frandor on Lansing's far eastside has come back up, again. Frandor literally sits atop an old swamp, and the area has to be redone to comply with federal law:

Eastwood Towne Center to expand:

Development...but crappy development unfortunately. I long for the day when proposals and announcements of this type of malls and parking will never occur

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.

Cool building.

Not sure what's all going on in downtown Lansing but seems like there is some improvement.

I was just in Lansing today. Michigan Ave. is looking fantastic.

Just wait until we get new streetscaping and bus rapid transit :)

An article on the jobs picture. They keep making mention to a shrinking labor force, but the labor force has remained roughly unchanged for much of the past two years, meaning that actual unemployment really is down considerably from its peak:

I think it's say we hit the bottom in the region quite some time ago.

Green loans...

Sad to see this being scaled-back, and even worse that they are taking out the multi-family building component, but 125-units is nothing to sneeze at in the middle of the city:

They need to connect that development to the surrounding neighborhood. It's like a gated community in the middle of the city, which is d-u-m-b.

Lots of news in the local business booster:

Market Place was actually supposed to start construction in the spring, and I do hope that this rendering that's been up for a good year now is just a preliminary rendering, but other than that, a lot of good news.

This is good news. It finally gets DeWitt Township involved in an airport that's always been in their borders, but that they've never helped maintain. The entire tri-county region benefits from the thing, but Lansing and Ingham County were the only ones left on the hook for subsidizing this. This will finally bring some parity:

For statistical purposes, the 425 will actually add land to Lansing for the duration of the agreement as far as the Census Bureau is concerned.

Dewitt is a leader
 

You seem to have a misunderstanding. It is important to understand the facts. In 1970 the voters in ingham county said yes to an airport. Clinton and eaton residents said no thanks. Now ingham county decided to put the airport outside their jurisdiction. They also passed a vote without thinking about what would happen if Clinton and eaton sad no. Now if they would have been smart they would have made their vote contingent on the other counties.

The fact is that ingham county made this problem, and the support of the airport has nothing to do with Dewitt. It is the counties. Don't blame Dewitt for inghams lack of foresight. The fact is the land use by the airport has not been very valuable because of ingham bad job of managing the airport. In other words Dewitt would have taken in more money if the land would have been a higher use, even ag.

Also Dewitt residents have played the price for the airport. They have to live next to the noise and other issues. They have had to deal with an airport that as never tied to work with it's neighbors. I have been told by airport management we are the airport and we will do what we want. Nice team player!

Now instead focusing on how dewitt brought lansing and the airport to the table, you blame dewitt for something it had no part off. Dewitt could have said the airport has been a horrible team player, and let them fail. But it appears that Dewitt understands from their comments that we must work together for the greater Lansing region.

The airport should be an important economic development tool, it has not, and I am glad that Dewitt and lansing can lead by example. Let's not toss stones at the past, but talking positively about the future. We live and die as a region. Praise people for working together not for what should have been done in the past.

Really, whatever. It's been like pulling teeth to get the region to support any of the regional amenities, whether it be the zoo, the transit system, the community college, etc. Delta Township, literally across the county-line from Lansing, is still paying a higher bus fare because they refuse to chip in to fund the system.

Anyway, good news. Regionalism out of sheer necessity, now. And, as usual, it's Lansing, and in particular Mayor Bernero, that's willing to initiate the discussion:

Thanks for all the updates, LMich! Gives me something to look forward to whenever my next visit will be. Where is the Marketplace project suppose to be?

On the site of the old City Market.

Im not putting much stock in this. I think this guy comes out with the same line every 6 months or so. I'll believe when I see it.
http://cmsimg.lansingstatejournal.co...W=640&Border=0
http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/article/20110302/BUSINESS02/103020337/-97M-City-Center-II-project-may-break-ground-year?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|FRONTPAGE|p

Not so much a development, as simple news, but here he is the Census numbers for the region:

Metropolitan Area

2000: 447,734
2010: 464,036

+16,302 (+3.6%)

------------------------------------------

Municipalities (+25,000)

------------------------------------------

Lansing:

------------------------------------------

2000: 119,128
2010: 114,297

-4,831 (-4.1%)

------------------------------------------

East Lansing:

------------------------------------------

2000: 46,525
2010: 48,579

+2,054 (+4.4%)

------------------------------------------

Meridian Township:

------------------------------------------

2000: 39,116
2010: 39,688

+572 (+1.5%)

------------------------------------------

Delta Township:

------------------------------------------

2000: 29,614
2010: 32,408

+2,794 (+9.4%)

---------------------------

The metro area grew nearly twice as quickly as what the last estimates had predicted, Lansing declined slightly less than predicted, East Lansing posted a significant gain having been predicted to have posted a slight decline. Meridian Township, which has been known for being anti-development, also posted a slight gain having been estimated to have lost a slight bit of its population. The fastest growing community in the metro was the sprawlburb of Bath Township, which posted nearly a 54% growth.

Also of note on the county level is that every county in the MSA grew, with Clinton County being the fastest growing county in the state over the decade. The Census had predicted a slight loss for Ingham County, which posted a very slight gain.

Though this was generally considered the month in which the project would wrap up when they first started it, you'd have expected the local media would have been counting down the day given the historic nature and size of the project. But, nary a peep until - SURPRISE! - they have a grand-opening, yesterday. It's almost like they tried to keep it a secret.

Some photos:

Oooh! Loving the Accident Fund project! I can't wait to explore Lansing again!

I'd been past this church in the last few months and noticed it had finally been sold. I'm just glad to see the property being sold. It was a large anchor for the Westside, and this should help the businesses along West Saginaw.

The Accident Fund project looks great. I love those massive windows from the inside.;)

I hope the AF project wins a long list of awards. It's incredibly well done, and just look how the old details adapt themselves well in the new interiors

I've wanted to see this park forever. So glad this went through. The Sycamore Basin is crazy and what I love about this place. You can be an urban area one minute, and the next be in an honest-to-goodness wilderness the next in the middle of a metropolitan area of 465,000.

On this map, you can see the Sycamore Basin. Crego is the forest in the upper-right and Fidelity Lake within it ever further to the right:

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/57/18...72e_z.jpg?zz=1

This is basically an entire quarter of the city (southeast quarter) of old-growth forests with all kinds of flora and fauna with a few residential areas scattered along Aurelius.

Looking forward to this next wave, as things have slowed down and little else knew has been coming down the pipeline in the last few years:

Just my opinion, but I think for this to be truly successful right out of the gate, we need a bit more infrastructure, namely bike lanes/paths and the small business community and city taking the intiative to add bike racks in business districts, that would further build the culture here to a sustainable level.

Kalamazoo is finally getting resurfaced from Penn to Cedar!!

That means one could very easily take a well-paved bike lane all the way from campus to downtown Lansing in a direct shot.

Looks like after ridership stagnated last year after having rose every year previous that CATA may be back to breaking records for the year:

It'll be interesting to see how this ultimately works out. At the very least, Lansing and what's left of Lansing Township need to merge their public safety departments.

http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/a...xt|FRONTPAGE|s

http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/a...text|FRONTPAGE

Developing Red Cedar golf course proposed
Voters might be asked to OK sale of Waverly, Red Cedar sites
7:17 AM, May. 7, 2011
http://cmsimg.lansingstatejournal.co...W=640&Border=0
Above is an artist's rendering of a concept for a portion of the Michigan Avenue gateway adjacent to the Red Cedar golf course.
http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/a...text|FRONTPAGE

Ballot effort for casino in Lansing progressing

http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/a...sectionstories