Lansing-East Lansing, MI Development

[LMich]

The tower crane is ready for...the Accident Fund [i]parking garage[/b]. Hell, I'll take a tower crane for whatever reason its here.





The complex is basically the looking the same as it has for months, now.

[Rizzo]

Windows looking good. Hope that parking structure compliments the building though.

[LMich]

It doesn't; at least I don't think it does much at all. The design is different from both the historic station, and glass-and-steel annex.

[Rizzo]

It ain't so bad, though difficult to see what's going on with all that dark area. It would be nice if they offset glass panels, which the whole composition of it with that precast would have similar language to the new office building.

[hood]

Lansing's Eyde development announced plans today to renovate the Knapp's building into a mix of retail, office and residential space in addition to underground parking. Eyde plans to move their offices, with 50 employees, into the building and the city of Lansing's Economic Development Corporation plans to put a 10,000 sq ft business incubator in the building. There will be 19 high end apartments on the fifth floor and 40 parking spaces in the basement. The project will $22-$24 million, construction is set to begin in early 2011 and wrap up in 2013.

Eyde plans overhall of Knapp's building

LSJ Archive of Knapp's building

Lansing City Pulse article on the announcement:
Knapp's wakes up

[LMich]

A bit more formatted:

Retro revival: Developer hopes to transform iconic Knapp’s building downtown

Barbara Wieland and Melissa Domsic • bwieland@lsj.com, mdomsic@lsj.com • April 7, 2010 • From Lansing State Journal

LANSING - A Lansing landmark that has lain dormant for eight years could be revived as a place for retailer, offices and apartment dwellers.

Developer Eyde Co. plans to turn the former J.W. Knapp’s Department Store building at the corner of Washington Square and Washtenaw Street into a mixed-use building containing retailers, office space, a business incubator, high-end apartments and underground parking.

Eyde, which has owned the 190,000-square-foot building for nearly three decades, would move its headquarters and 50 employees from Hagadorn Road in East Lansing to the redeveloped building, bringing 50 employees downtown.

The project is contingent on a financing package of federal, state and local incentives and programs. If financing is secured, construction would begin in the spring of 2011 and the building would open in 2013.

...

Eyde is talking to a couple of potential restaurant tenants for the first floor and Clouse said he’d also like to see a bookstore. The mezzanine, second, third and fourth floors will have Class A, or high-quality, office space, Clouse said.

The fifth floor will house at least 19 high-end rental apartments that could eventually be sold as condominiums.

The roughly 1,000-square-foot units would feature one or two bedrooms and outdoor decks. Rent would run about $1,500 to $1,700 per month, Clouse said. Residents would not have to pay state or local income tax for 12 years because of the Renaissance Zone.

About 40 underground parking spaces would serve residents and some office users. Other tenants would park at nearby parking ramps.

...

Renderings and Plans:

[quote]

Historic photos courtesy the LSJ archives:

A few of my own pics of the existing structure:

[subterranean]

Another article in the Lansing City Pulse:

http://www.lansingcitypulse.com/lans...-wakes-up.html


This seems to have come out of the blue. This is exactly what that side of town needs. I always envisioned a Borders in that building, but this isn't the climate for a bookstore (and Borders is hurting). But with the Arbough finished a few years ago, the new police headquarters on Kzoo, and the new Michigan Brewing Company...this end of Washington is really coming along. Hell yeah!

[Rizzo]

This will be incredible. It's a really cool building, and I'm impressed by those renders.

[ColDayMan]

Did you have Bill Knapps in Michigan? It was a bootleg Bob Evans.

[Rizzo]

They converted one of them into a Zingermanns Roadhouse. The rest became uncertain famly restaurants repainting their facades with garish colors.

[fishrose]

Originally Posted by ColDayMan

Did you have Bill Knapps in Michigan? It was a bootleg Bob Evans.

I don't know if you're trolling or just had a bad experience, but Bill Knapp's was a million times better than any Bob Evans anywhere ever. The food was all prepared from scratch using the same recipes that Chef Bill Knapp created for his first restaurant. The potatoes au gratin and chocolate cake were to die for... I'll probably dream about them tonight.

[ColDayMan]

Oy, I haven't been considered "trolling" since 1999! Man, I am getting old.

And Bill Knapp's was trash. Honestly, it tasted like a low-budget Perkins...which is a low-budget Bob Evans.

[Rizzo]

LOL, I'm surprised someone actually took that seriously.

[LMich]

Forgive him; he's a relative newbie, so he wouldn't get Colday's style.

[LMich]

I wish the region marketed itself better, because if it did, this kind of news would actually translate into more good things for the region.

MSU tops MIT as best nuclear physics grad school

By MATTHEW MILLER
LANSING STATE JOURNAL

April 16, 2010

EAST LANSING - For a university like Michigan State, small shifts in academic rankings don't necessarily mean much. Until, of course, they do.

This year, MSU's graduate program in nuclear physics nabbed the No. 1 spot in the U.S. News & World Report rankings, pulling ahead of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology after years in the No. 2 slot.

...

But he added that one shouldn't overestimate the importance of the rankings, which are based solely on rankings by academic experts. Bauer was one of those experts this year, though "you don't rank yourself."

"It's a perception of how a program is ranked in the community," he said. "In a certain way, this is important, because if other faculty at other institutions say Michigan State is ranked No. 1, they will recommend to their best undergraduates, 'Go to the No. 1 school,' and that No. 1 school is not MIT anymore."

And, as perceptions go, MSU's success in securing the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, a $550-million Department of Energy-funded research facility slated to go online in 2017, certainly didn't hurt, he said.

"The biggest thing in nuclear physics to happen in the last five to 10 years was clearly the decision to site FRIB on MSU's campus," Bauer said. "For sure, that had an influence on these rankings."

The region has all of these great pieces, but no one(s) has/have been able to piece them together to make a case for Mid-Michigan in any meaningful way.

[LMich]

I'm just happy someone's setting up in this storefront. No business seems to survive in the building longer than a year or two. This type of business will definitely have a longer self-life. And right across the street is a seasonal ice cream shop.

Checking things out: Danny Trevino calls Lansing police on Tuesday after they left a note at the storefront in north Lansing that he uses as a medical marijuana dispensary.

Medical marijuana shop a Lansing first

Scott Davis • sedavis@lsj.com • April 21, 2010

n a storefront in Lansing's Old Town, Darryl Brija waits patiently in a chair while Rochelle Harris checks his driver's license and measures out a quarter-ounce of marijuana.

Brija, 52, of Potterville, hands over $90 in cash. Harris hands him the plastic bag of marijuana, which Brija slips into his jacket pocket.

The transaction is business as usual at Lansing's first official medical marijuana dispensary, which might test the limits of the state's medicinal marijuana law.

...

Danny Trevino, a Lansing man who sells marijuana-growing equipment at Hydro World in Lansing, opened the dispensary at 407 E. Grand River Ave.

Mid-Michigan marijuana advocates say dispensaries have been operating informally out of a few Lansing homes for months, but Trevino's business marks the first official one in the city.

...

In other news, the median sale price for housing in the metro is back up over $100,000.

Lansing-area home sales up in March

Home sales in the Lansing area surged in March as the homebuyer tax credit neared its end. There were 459 homes sold in Ingham, Eaton and Clinton counties and some surrounding areas in March, up 29 percent from the 356 sold a year earlier, according to the Greater Lansing Association of Realtors. The average sale price was $102,541, up 20 percent from $85,468 a year ago. The tax credit expires April 30.

[Rizzo]

I don't know about it being a long lasting business. Some medical marijuana stores in LA have had high turnovers because of insurance. They get broken into or robbed alot. Is that a large plate glass window I see? hmmmm.

[uaarkson]

There's more weed at MSU than there will be in that store over its entire lifespan.

[fishrose]

Originally Posted by uaarkson

There's more weed at MSU than there will be in that store over its entire lifespan.

The man speaks the truth. "SMOKE GREEN! BLOW WHITE!"

[subterranean]

Oldsmobile Stadium No More.

Are you ready for this? (Sorry for the bad image)



That's "Cooley Law School Stadium."