Lansing-East Lansing, MI Development

[LMich]

Looks like Lansing United's name will be changed to Lansing Ignite, they'll be taken up a division, and they'll move downtown:



Lansing pro soccer team likely to begin play this spring at Lugnuts' stadium downtown

LANSING – Professional soccer appears to be on its way to downtown Lansing, with plans to play at the Lugnuts’ stadium, beginning this spring.

The Lansing City Council is reviewing plans for a Lansing professional team in the new United Soccer League Division 3, an offshoot of the longstanding USL and a league loosely affiliated with Major League Soccer.

Lugnuts president Nick Grueser presented plans to the City Council’s committee of the whole Monday evening. If approved, the club will play its home games at the city-owned Cooley Law School Stadium. The soccer team is separate from the baseball organization, Grueser said, though he will be team president and Lugnuts owner Tom Dickson will own the team. A full City Council vote is slated for early October, Mayor Andy Schor said.

The club's fans are not happy with this change in ownership, and have been against it ever since this idea was originally broached. They will drop association with the team.

In other news:

The Lansing metropolitan statistical area just got a bigger

LANSING — For the first time, the Lansing region is home to more than a half million people.

That's because the United States Office of Management and Budget is adding Shiawassee County to the metropolitan statistical area once made up of Ingham, Eaton and Clinton counties.

Shiawassee was moved into the Lansing area’s MSA because of the growing number of people who live in the county but commute to Lansing and East Lansing for work, said Bob Trezise, President and CEO of the Lansing Economic Area Partnership.

The addition of Shiawassee County will raise the regional population from 477,656 to 546,102.

Shiawassee has already been in the CSA, but increased commuting finally brought it into the MSA. In fact, the last time they did major delineations it was already sending slightly over the 25% (25.4%) threshold to Lansing to be included, but stayed a CSA county because it kept more of its workers in county than it sent to Lansing, apparently. Looks like that balance has finally been tilted.

[LMich]

The council unanimously passed the new overnight street parking ordinance I was talking about a few weeks ago, and after learning more about it, some of the stuff I said appears to have been in error. The overnight street parking permits will not be interpreted by the Planning Office as a replacement for parking minimums for dwellings and businesses. What it will do, however, is take some pressure off downtown developers to provide excess off-street parking on their lots. So it could mean fewer smaller surface lots and garages, and less pressure to knock down buildings on neighboring lots for parking.

Do you live in downtown Lansing? City will sell permits for overnight street parking

LANSING — If you live downtown and buy a permit, Lansing might soon let you park overnight on certain streets.

City Council voted 8-0 Monday night to set the groundwork for a permit system that creates an exception to Lansing's ban on overnight street parking. The exception would apply for people who live in designated high-density areas.

The new parking system could be implemented as soon as 2019, At-large Council Member Peter Spadafore said.

It has not yet been determined exactly how much a parking permit will cost. Council will set the fee at a later date. Additionally, City Council has yet to vote to draw the boundaries for zones where overnight street parking will be allowed.

Spadafore introduced the ordinance and said he modeled the system on parking policies in other cities like Madison, Wisconsin and Seattle.

They anticipate rates for the permits to be cheaper than monthly rates for overnight parking in downtown garages. Parallel to this is a formal process going on that would reconsider the overnight ban on parking on city streets, altogether. Were the ban overturned, my understanding is that it wouldn't dismantle the just-passed permitting system for the high-density areas.

[LMich]

Landmark on Grand River going up in East Lansing has a few new (or at least unobstructed) renderings of this one on their facebook page.









August construction of the Target:



September 13


City of East Lansing

[Ex-Ithacan]

^ Impressive.

[LMich]

More from Center City as of September 28 courtesy the City of East Lansing twitter account:

Looking south-southwest:



Looking south:



Cranes of The Hub looking east:



Back in Lansing, tomorrow's Planning Board agenda updates us on a project long in planning. The owners of the former site of the troubled Deluxe Inn motel at the southeast corner of Malcolm X and Washington at the northern edge of REO Town just south of downtown is up for rezoning. They are proposing building a 5-story, 112-room hotel fronting Malcolm X, and a 2-story, 40-unit apartment building which will also front Malcolm X, but be stretched back to the river since the parcel is so this. The apartment building will have underground parking; unfortunately, the hotel will have 128-spot surface parking lot. The crazy thing is that the district to which they are requesting a rezoning has no parking requirements (along with no setback or other dimensional requirements).

Map:



Site:


REO Town by NewCityOne, on Flickr

Before they tore down the old motel:


Deluxe Inn by Khalid, on Flickr

The lone conifer in the old coutyard was spared during demolition. It'll be interesting to see if the developers will building around it or cut it down.

[LMich]

A small development, but it's always good to see a historic home saved from the claws of an excavator. The old Cooley-Haze House on Malcolm X just northwest of REO Town will be saved and turned into a retail salvage materials store. A weird re-use, but it'll keep the house. The old house was built in 1903 and most recently houses the Michigan Women's Historical Center and Hall of Fame.


Matthew Dae Smith | LSJ

This proposal might breathe new life into a 115-year-old Lansing mansion

LANSING – It's the last mansion standing.

The yellow five-bedroom house is the last of the large homes that once flanked Lansing's Main Street, now known as Malcolm X Street. A new plan, to be reviewed by City Council today could breathe new life into the 115-year-old building known as the Cooley-Haze house.

Joe Vitale, a realtor and Lansing resident, has asked to buy the building from the city of Lansing for $20,000 and turn it into a store that sells salvaged building materials.

Vitale said he hopes to restore the home to its former glory and get it approved for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places.

A portion of the house would serve as workshop area, featuring demonstrations for people who are looking to carry out their own renovation projects, Vitale said.

"I think it meets an unmet need in the area," Vitale said.

[subterranean]

I helped put up that REOTOWN sign what seems like a lot of years ago, now. Happy to see a proposal. If I'm not mistaken, this would be the only other hotel aside from the Raddison within 2 miles of the Capitol. Which is, of course, nuts.

[LMich]

If I had to bet, my guess is that the hotel at 600 East Michigan will be completed before this one.

With the expiration of the agreement that helped keep the Radisson the only game in town for so long, there are hotels rumored to be searching out all kinds of downtown and near-downtown locations. The City Hall proposal also includes a full-service, high(er)-end hotel. That one is on hold (thankfully).

[LMich]

October 5th: https://www.eastlansingbuzz.org/sing...Update-10-5-18

Center City: They are up to the 9th floor on Landmark, and the 5th floor on Newman Lofts.



The Hub: Up the the 3rd floor.

[LMich]

This happened very quickly. Not formally presented until late last month, the agreement is already completed and they'll start their next season in the stadium in march.



Pro soccer in downtown Lansing gets go-ahead from City Council

LANSING – City Council unanimously approved a deal Monday night to bring professional soccer to Lansing’s downtown baseball stadium beginning this spring.

The licensing agreement with Lansing Soccer Club LLC — the same ownership and management as the Lansing Lugnuts’ minor league baseball team — is for five years, running through 2023.

The team, Lansing Ignite, will play in USL League One (temporarily known as USL Division 3), a new league tied to the more-established USL and Major League Soccer. An announcement from the club is expected later this month.

The article says this will be the first pro soccer club in the state, is that right?

[jmcilreavy]

Originally Posted by LMich

This happened very quickly. Not formally presented until late last month, the agreement is already completed and they'll start their next season in the stadium in march.



Pro soccer in downtown Lansing gets go-ahead from City Council



The article says this will be the first pro soccer club in the state, is that right?

The league USL League 1 (USL3) still hasn't announced if Lansing can join yet. No reason to think otherwise but strange League hasn't said anything publicly yet.
League is expected to launch in the Spring with at least 11 teams across three time zones.

[LMich]

The article says that we'll here by the end of the month. We're not even midway through the month, yet.

[jmcilreavy]

Lansing Ignite will in fact be the only pro soccer team in the state of Michigan. Michigan has over 100k registered players and a collection of some of the most successful college and amateur clubs in the country (notably Detroit City FC and Michigan Bucks).
USL League One visited Lansing on two separate occasions that I recall last winter. Soctakes.com has been reporting for sometime that Lansing was a target for the league and was getting in for the 2019 season. Great news for Lansing!

[LMich]

A big puff-piece series in the LSJ this morning detailing the Lansing economy. A few stories, the first on the diversification of the economy, here:


Nick King / Lansing State Journal

$3B planned in new construction reflects Greater Lansing's growing economic diversity

In Lansing’s “old economic model,” jobs in the mid-Michigan region were concentrated in three areas: state of Michigan employees, Michigan State University employees and General Motors employees.

But during the last decade, the Greater Lansing Area has expanded its range of industry and job development, leading to the region’s economic diversity.

And now, the area’s development shows no signs of slowing down.

Indeed, total construction in the region will be in the $3 billion range over the next 18 to 24 months, Tresize said.

One large area is the insurance industry. The mid-Michigan region is home to several Fortune 500 insurance national headquarters. With 10,000 insurance employees in the Greater Lansing Area alone, it’s the unofficial insurance capital in the state of Michigan, Daman said.

Another influential force is health care, shown by Sparrow Health System’s acquisitions of rural health care locations and McLaren Health Care’s expected $450 million hospital and cancer center on the edge of Michigan State University’s campus.

Particle acceleration is another “piece of the pie.” Just 10 years ago, particle acceleration companies didn’t exist in the area, and now these companies are employing several hundred people, Trezise said.

The next is on the local single-family home housing market, which is still really affordable despite decreased supply. Apparently, higher end stuff isn't selling as fast, but affordable stuff is being snapped up very quickly.

Greater Lansing's hot real estate market favors sellers

LANSING — Houses are being snapped up in the Lansing-area.

That's good news if you're planning to sell. If you're planning to buy, the outlook isn't as good — you'll have less negotiating power in a hot market where demand for housing exceeds supply.

It would take about three months to sell all the single-family homes that are listed in the region, according to data from the Greater Lansing Association of Realtors. A six-monthsupply of houses would be typical of a balanced market.

Post-Great Recession, housing supply peaked in the Lansing-area in early 2013, when the region had a nearly 11-month supply of available housing. In the spring of 2013, the region had about 2,500 homes available for sale — two and half times the number listed for sale in spring 2018, according to GLAR.

The median sale price for a single-family home in the Lansing-area was $150,000 as of September 2018, a 2.2% increase over the prior year, according to GLAR.

The regional market for affordable and mid-range homes is, indeed, hot, although the market is really more lukewarm at the pricier end of the continuum, said Alex Craig, a Realtor with Coldwell Banker Hubbell BriarWood.

Houses under $250,000 are quick to sell; supply for those homes has been hovering between one to four-months for the tri-county area. For homes around $300,000, the region's market is balanced with inventory roughly on par with supply.

Then some individual pieces that are kind of sub-stories to the first story:


Matthew Dae Smith / Lansing State Journal

Here's how $1.5B will change health care in Greater Lansing


Rod Sanford / Lansing State Journal

Capital region becomes an insurance capital with 6 companies and 10,000 jobs

[LMich]

Medical marijuana facility gets state approval to grow up to 3,000 plants in Lansing

LANSING — A business is one step closer to becoming the first medical marijuana cultivation facility to operate legally in the city of Lansing.

Green Peak Innovations received licenses Thursday to grow up to 3,000 marijuana plants at 1669 E. Jolly Road.

The south Lansing facility is slated to open by the end of this month, said Green Peak Innovations CEO Jeff Radway. The facility will create about 20 jobs in Lansing, he said, and the company intends to add more jobs as it expands in the region.

This is the same company involved in a massive marijuana business park, Harvest Park, setting up shop just west of here in an adjacent suburb.

Green Peak Innovations has plans to open a 131-acre marijuana business park in Windsor Township. The industrial park will serve as the company's headquarters and, pending certification from the state, will include growing and processing facilities, company representatives say.

Green Peak Innovations aims to profit from "seed to store" vertical integration of medical marijuana production.

The beginnings of Harvest Park:


Greek Peak Innovations



Landmark: This one has three or four more floors to go. East Lansing's height limit generally results in buildings of 12 floors max.

October 10


Landmark on Grand River

October 17


Landmark on Grand River

The pictures don't do the scale of this one justice. This feels much bigger when you're on Grand River, though the setback kind of mitigates the amount to which is looms over the sidewalk. The Hub also feels much, much bigger than how it's photographed, particularly when you're coming at it down Grand River from the west. Because of the slight job in the alignment of Grand River east of Bogue, it appears as if it's rising in the middle of the street from a distance.

[LMich]

A story on the nearly (at least) thousand new residential units coming online in downtown East Lansing in the coming years.


Robert Killips

What will nearly 1,000 new apartments mean for downtown East Lansing?

EAST LANSING — Three weeks after leasing began, The Hub at East Lansing had already raised its prices twice.

Because it could. Demand had been that strong.

The 10-story student apartment building is still under construction on the eastern edge of downtown. It has just one exterior wall, but it's a stone's throw away from Michigan State University's campus. Students are already certain they want to live there.

So certain that, when the leasing office hosted an open house on a Wednesday in mid-September, few students actually showed up to tour the small mock apartment set up for the occasion.

They called instead, and let agents walk them through the leasing process for a building that doesn't open until August. The spread of cupcakes, soda and barbecue sandwiches went almost untouched.

The article notes the decline in city vacancy rates from 8.4% in 2010 to 4.2% in 2016.

[LMich]

Well, it's official; Michigan gets it's first pro-soccer club.



Lansing Ignite pro soccer eyes bringing 'different audience' downtown to Lugnuts stadium

LANSING – A new era of sports and entertainment in downtown Lansing began Thursday, as the Lansing Ignite, a professional soccer team set to begin play next spring, announced their existence Thursday afternoon at Cooley Law School Stadium.

The stadium and ownership group is familiar — Lugnuts owner Tom Dickson is the Ignite’s owner, Lugnuts president Nick Grueser is the president. Lansing United owner and founder Jeremy Sampson is the Ignite’s full-time general manager.

The team will play in the new USL League One, an offshoot of the longstanding United Soccer League, under the umbrella of Major League Soccer. Lansing Ignite is Michigan’s first professional soccer team since the Detroit Express, which lasted from 1978 to ’80.

[LMich]

Looks like the development of 600 East Michigan will include the redevelopment of the old Lansing Union Depot across the street, which until the summer of 2016 had served as Lansing Clara's Station restaurant.



Clara's building redevelopment will likely go hand in hand with downtown market plans

LANSING — All signs point to new life at what was once Clara's Lansing Station.

In late August, Gillespie Group announced plans for a grocery store and a hotel on the 600 block of East Michigan Avenue, part of a larger mixed-use development slated to open by the end of 2020.

Gillespie Group also owns the now-vacant Clara's Lansing Station, which is across the street.

President Pat Gillespie said redevelopment work on that site will likely start before the hotel and market are up and running.

While Gillespie Group hasn't released specific plans for the former train station, Gillespie said he envisions a bar and restaurant with an entertainment component for the space.

This will ensure the continued reuse of both of Lansing's old train stations.


Lansing, MI train station by Ron Reiring, on Flickr


Grand Trunk Western Depot Lansing MI-5332 by Jan Davis Ruthig, on Flickr

[LMich]

October 26: https://www.eastlansingbuzz.org/sing...pdate-10-26-18

Center City: Both projects seem to have slowed down a bit. They poured the 9th level floor and wall panels are going up on Landmark on Grand River. On Newman Lofts, they are pouring the western end of the fourth floor, apparently, which I guess is why it looks like so little work was done since the beginning of the month. They say brickwork is being done along the ground floor, too.



The Hub: Looks like decking and shoring has has been completed on the eastern third of the third floor and will be poured, soon. It also appears that walls are going up.

[LMich]

Looks like Park District is going to start when they say they are. The City of East Lansing has sent a notice to Christman Company, general contractors for the neighboring Center City developer, to vacate a parcel of land the city owns which they've been using for construction staging.

They are being asked to vacate this parcel because Park District will begin construction in early December. That's going to be two more tower cranes on the skyline.