A few things coming up in this week's council committee and board agendas...
- In our first official movement on the new McLaren Greater Lansing campus, McLaren is requesting a total vacation of Alliance Drive - and partial vacation of Technology Boulevard - in the University Corporate Research Park. This will be between the MSU Foundation building to the north and the Granger Building to the south.
- Speaking of the new McLaren Greater Lansing, 3600 Dunckel - a residential project consisting of four, 4-story buildings to include 286 units - is the first direct spin-off of McLaren's announcement. The committee on development and planning review the project this week and likely send their recommendation to the full council at the meeting barring some hold-up. The city's brownfield authority already approved the brownfield plan.
- On that same development, because the developers are seeking to develop this under a "planned residential development" overlay, the developers have simultaneously requested a special land use permit to go before the Planning Board this week. A "planned residential development" PRD overlay allows for flexibility in developing residential projects on large parcels of land and includes things like bonus density, a mix of housing types in a district that would usually restrict for a single housing type, etc. In this case, the developer isn't seeking bonus density. It appears the only reason they are requesting a special land use permit is because they are developing multiple buildings on one parcel. Anyway, if this gets recommended for approval this week, then it goes through the council committee structure and then finally to the full council. The developer is moving fast and wants to get this thing started this fall.
- Lastly on 3600 Dunckell we find out in the planning board agenda that they requested a lot split back in May for some reason, and want to develop commercial uses (including a hotel) on the Duncekl Road frontage. To give you guys some orientation on this site, it will be down Collins Road from the new hospital in the southeast quadrant of the intersection with 496 on the site of an old hotel that operated there for decades. It's literally squeezed in on east by some of MSU's experimental farms which stretch for miles up the Collins Road frontage and 496 on the west. Directly south is Lansing main post-office. You really feel out in the middle of nowhere out here, so this isn't going to be an urban development by any stretch. But it'll provide nearby housing for McLaren employees and MSU students in training working at the hospital.