10 replies to this topic

[hood]

THis building is to be built on the site of the former YMCA, I'm very impressed. It hasn't been officially announced yet, but that didn't stop CBRE from putting out renderings and info on it.

Basic info:
180,000 sq ft
12 floors
4 floor, 750 space parking garage (building sits on top of it)
LEED certified
Track on roof
Mid 2010 completion

[Lmichigan]

$60M building may go on old YMCA site

Jeremy W. Steele • Lansing State Journal • April 21, 2008

A 12-story, $60 million office building could replace the dilapidated former home of the YMCA.
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Husband-and-wife developers Daniel Essa and Julie Lawton-Essa, of East Lansing-based Lawton Group Development, want to build the massive structure on the two-acre site the YMCA of Metropolitan Lansing vacated in 2003.

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[dunveth]

Looks great! Keep us posted ...

[LA Dave]

May I offer a dissenting view?  I think that this building looks like a filing cabinet.  Sort of retro, but without the great detailing that you see on Deco buildings.  The curtain wall seems to me very pedestrian.  I don't mean to harp, but Lansing has some great buildings downtown.  Growing up in GR, I would have traded our ugly McKay Tower for Lansing's great Olds (now Boji) Tower in a heartbeat.

[Lmichigan]

Most buildings built today that nod back to Deco don't have the level of detail the deco's did.  That's why it's called postmodern.  Not a big fan, myself, but I wouldn't think anyone should be expecting deco-level detail in an architectural style that defines itself by being a cheap knock-off of the original thing.

[tSlater]

LA Dave, on May 31 2008, 05:46 PM, said:

ugly McKay Tower

~cries~

[Lmichigan]

I must have missed that.  The McKay Tower is easily one of my favorite buildings in the state.  It's unique in having been vertically extended into a high-rise.  Sure, they could have bothered to do a bit more with the top of the structure, but other than that that is one great-looking tower that I wish we had in Lansing.  Art Deco certainly isn't everything, at quite frankly, after awhile they all start to look the same.

[Eridony]

I also don't understand the dislike for McKay some have. Boji will always be special to me because I used to look at it out of my dorm window while laying in bed, but I would actually expect most people to like McKay better.

As for this building I think the the rendering looks great. It looks strong and while not as detailed as many older buildings it also isn't just another plain looking glass box.

[LA Dave]

Lmichigan, on Jun 1 2008, 06:54 PM, said:

I must have missed that.  The McKay Tower is easily one of my favorite buildings in the state.  It's unique in having been vertically extended into a high-rise.  Sure, they could have bothered to do a bit more with the top of the structure, but other than that that is one great-looking tower that I wish we had in Lansing.  Art Deco certainly isn't everything, at quite frankly, after awhile they all start to look the same.

I grew up looking at the McKay Tower and wishing all the while that we had something better.  I prefer its near-contemporary, the old Michigan National Bank tower a block away on Monroe, for its emphasis of verticality.  However, my favorite GR "high-rise," by far, is the great Michigan Trust Building, designed by Solon Beman (architect of many Chicago Style skyscrapers as well as Pullman, Illinois).  

With respect to post-modernism, one of my biggest beefs with that style is that so often it is done on the cheap.  That is my impression of the Lenawee.  Sorry, but I just don't like it.

[Lmichigan]

I don't like it either, but the whole point of post-modernism is that it's a cheap knock-off of the original thing.  I'm just not sure what else one should expect when they know what gets built, these days.  It needs to be judged for what it is (i.e. post-modern), because, if one's going to try and pair up a post-modern design with an original Art Deco, then the latter wins every single time.  If one doesn't like post-modern, that's fine.  I really don't like the vast majority of it, myself, but I'm not going to stack up a knock-off next to the original thing just to bash the knock-off.

Edited by Lmichigan, 02 June 2008 - 04:17 PM.

[LA Dave]

Lmichigan, on Jun 2 2008, 02:13 PM, said:

I don't like it either, but the whole point of post-modernism is that it's a cheap knock-off of the original thing.  I'm just not sure what else one should expect when they know what gets built, these days.  It needs to be judged for what it is (i.e. post-modern), because, if one's going to try and pair up a post-modern design with an original Art Deco, then the latter wins every single time.  If one doesn't like post-modern, that's fine.  I really don't like the vast majority of it, myself, but I'm not going to stack up a knock-off next to the original thing just to bash the knock-off.

Not to keep this going ad infinitum, but my criticism of the Lenawee was passed on my basic dislike of the design, not a specific criticism of post-modernist style.  The reference to Deco was simply to highlight one reason why I did not like the design.  Post-modernism, however, need not be a "cheap knock-off" of the original if done with sensitivity and style.  I think that some of Michael Graves' earlier work is quite nice, and there is also Robert A.M. Stern's opus.  For a Michigan example of the latter, see the new North Quad dormitory at the University of Michigan.  I just think that the Lenawee is a poor example of post-modernism, done cheaply.  

For what it is worth, I don't think much of the glass-walled monstrosities being put up in GR either, though I haven't seen the new Marriott or River House in person.  Hence my reference to the Solon Beman Michigan Trust Building, which is a structure designed by a master architect at the height of his powers.