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One Fulton Square (at Carlton)


GRDadof3

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OK, let's help get this parcel developed with something the ECA will be happy with. The Gilmores want it sold!

 

5 minute walk from the center of Eastown, 3 minutes from Fulton Street Farmers Market, 3 minutes from Aquinas College, across the street from a "revamped" Family Fare, a coffee shop, Schnitz Deli, a bike shop. Right next door to the opera rehearsel center.

 

What else? Homes in that area are now going in the $150 - $180K range.

 

What would you like to see here? Post pictures if you have some examples.

 

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I'd like to see something like that mixed use development at the corner of wealthy and diamond[emoji6]

Uncus, it just so happens I built that, so you don't need to look far for the design and the details of it.  That whole site, including the town homes along Sigsbee is .9 acres.  The mixed use building plus the parking lot and green space behind is almost the same size as Carlton.  I would think student apartments for Aquinas could be a good fit here.

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Quick comment, that strip of land that runs south behind the homes on Carlton and Benjamin is very strange and unless I am not seeing something, useless.

 

That is strange how that strip was included with that parcel. I wonder if it was an alley at one time and was vacated to Michigan Litho when they used to be there?

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Uncus, it just so happens I built that, so you don't need to look far for the design and the details of it.  That whole site, including the town homes along Sigsbee is .9 acres.  The mixed use building plus the parking lot and green space behind is almost the same size as Carlton.  I would think student apartments for Aquinas could be a good fit here.

 

It might be hard to do townhouses on the back portion of the lot since they wouldn't face a side or back street like Uptown Village does.

 

Figure a building that takes up about 2/3's of the footprint, it'd be about 13,000 sf per floor. One could get 12 - 14 apartments per floor.

 

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I'd be partial to something a little more modern than what's being built currently around town. :)

 

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Jeff, when I try to put photos in my post, I get an error message saying I am not allowed to use the photo extensions as a part of this community...?

You need to use a photosharing service such as Photobucket. And then you copy/paste the URL of the desired image.

Example: [ {extra space to show URL} url=http://s4.photobucket.com/user/veloise/media/Cyburbia/jobsmap.jpg.html ] [/url {extra space}]

becomes

jobsmap.jpg

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Jeff, when I try to put photos in my post, I get an error message saying I am not allowed to use the photo extensions as a part of this community...?

 

What Veloise said. Or if you don't want to use an offsite photo hosting service, you can click on "More Reply Options" under your Reply box, and then use the Attach Files function. Once you've attached the picture file, you have to "Add to Post". The picture will show up as a small thumbnail that people can click on.

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Quick comment, that strip of land that runs south behind the homes on Carlton and Benjamin is very strange and unless I am not seeing something, useless.

 

Not totally useless.  25 and 29 Carlton are common ownership with 1 Carlton, and the strip is about 23 feet wide, so with a little bit of rework, at least half the strip could be used for parking directly off the alley, provided that the city will waive the ridiculous greenspace buffer they usually want from the neighboring residential parcel.  The southern half of the strip is more difficult, since the alley is a dead end.  There might be enough room to turn around in the alley without doing angled spots, but it might be tight.

 

My personal preference for the site is for a large gas station.  ;) 

 

Realistically, student housing is probably the best fit other than a gas station.  I'm not sure how well single family infill housing would work given the proximity of Fulton.  It might work on the back half of the lot. 

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Uncus, it just so happens I built that, so you don't need to look far for the design and the details of it.  That whole site, including the town homes along Sigsbee is .9 acres.  The mixed use building plus the parking lot and green space behind is almost the same size as Carlton.  I would think student apartments for Aquinas could be a good fit here.

And a fantastic development it is!

That strip of land is very weird.. the theory of it being a vacated alley doesn't make sense either, because it runs along an existing alley.  The best option I think would indeed be parking, it'd work excellently for that I think.  If parking won't be approved there, perhaps it could be used for individual garden plots for the residents, like some of the community gardens elsewhere.

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And a fantastic development it is!

That strip of land is very weird.. the theory of it being a vacated alley doesn't make sense either, because it runs along an existing alley.  The best option I think would indeed be parking, it'd work excellently for that I think.  If parking won't be approved there, perhaps it could be used for individual garden plots for the residents, like some of the community gardens elsewhere.

 

 

I was going to say, maybe part of it for parking and the other part as small gardens for residents.

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Not totally useless.  25 and 29 Carlton are common ownership with 1 Carlton, and the strip is about 23 feet wide, so with a little bit of rework, at least half the strip could be used for parking directly off the alley, provided that the city will waive the ridiculous greenspace buffer they usually want from the neighboring residential parcel.  The southern half of the strip is more difficult, since the alley is a dead end.  There might be enough room to turn around in the alley without doing angled spots, but it might be tight.

 

My personal preference for the site is for a large gas station.  ;)

 

Realistically, student housing is probably the best fit other than a gas station.  I'm not sure how well single family infill housing would work given the proximity of Fulton.  It might work on the back half of the lot. 

 

I think they want way too much for the land to make single family housing work. Maybe part of it can be single family, along Carlton. I believe the minimum lot width in the city of GR for a single-family home is 36 feet?

 

Housing that may or may not appeal to students is probably the best way to go. Aquinas is private so perhaps those parents have more money than GVSU students' parents? :)

 

I watched a rehab show on one of the home channels the other day and they rehabbed a house in Minneapolis and rented it for $3200/month, to two female college students. Yowza. I think I scraped by with $400 a month for housing when I was in college.

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I think they want way too much for the land to make single family housing work. Maybe part of it can be single family, along Carlton. I believe the minimum lot width in the city of GR for a single-family home is 36 feet?

 

Housing that may or may not appeal to students is probably the best way to go. Aquinas is private so perhaps those parents have more money than GVSU students' parents? :)

 

I watched a rehab show on one of the home channels the other day and they rehabbed a house in Minneapolis and rented it for $3200/month, to two female college students. Yowza. I think I scraped by with $400 a month for housing when I was in college.

 

10 years ago, my room in the basement of a 14-resident co-op house was $240/month + $75/month for dinner six nights a week and unlimited access to a fully stocked pantry.  Those were the days...  Although there were certainly drawbacks, the value couldn't be beat!

 

I also think some apartments that would appeal to students, but also have some appeal to other residents would be ideal here.  I like the first couple of photos that GRDad posted.

Would be really great to have some retail frontage facing Fulton across from the existing retail, and something that meshes with the Opera building and creates some nice public space, similar to the original proposal.

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I think they want way too much for the land to make single family housing work. Maybe part of it can be single family, along Carlton. I believe the minimum lot width in the city of GR for a single-family home is 36 feet?

 

Housing that may or may not appeal to students is probably the best way to go. Aquinas is private so perhaps those parents have more money than GVSU students' parents? :)

 

I watched a rehab show on one of the home channels the other day and they rehabbed a house in Minneapolis and rented it for $3200/month, to two female college students. Yowza. I think I scraped by with $400 a month for housing when I was in college.

 

I think 36 feet is about the minimum, but closer to 50 is a better sized lot to meet setbacks, have a reasonably wide house, and avoid extra work to meet fire code.  Traditional 3br side by side duplexes might be a nice fit along Carlton to blend with the existing neighborhood.  At about 1500sf per side rents will be around 1600 a month which leaves a construction budget of $320k, give or take.  Duplexes on lots that wide would need a variance, and I'm not sure whether those rents will fly on the bleeding north edge of Eastown, but they might.  On Fulton something more modern or commercial would certainly be appropriate, I would say 3-4 stories in overall height.  It would be nice to see something take shape before housing runs out of steam again.  This isn't a historic district, so the possibilities are open.

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I really like this design a lot.   I like the use of different materials, the roof top patios, etc.  I think it would look perfect on this corner.

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What about this fronting Carlton, with a small mixed use bldg facing Fulton?  Something with a similar footprint to some of the older buildings up near Diamond seems like it would fit well with the bldgs across the street and the Opera center.

I like how this design addresses the sidewalk.  I walked by a lot of 3-5 story infill on the SE side of downtown Denver that had TERRIBLE sidewalk frontage when I was walking from my hotel to Safeway to pickup some breakfast.

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And a fantastic development it is!

That strip of land is very weird.. the theory of it being a vacated alley doesn't make sense either, because it runs along an existing alley.  The best option I think would indeed be parking, it'd work excellently for that I think.  If parking won't be approved there, perhaps it could be used for individual garden plots for the residents, like some of the community gardens elsewhere.

Actually "I" did not build it.  Lighthouse Communities (now LINC) was the developer, Isaac Norris and Associates designed it, and Rockford Construction built it.  It takes a pretty large team to do a development that complex!  Need to give credit where credit is due.

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I think 36 feet is about the minimum, but closer to 50 is a better sized lot to meet setbacks, have a reasonably wide house, and avoid extra work to meet fire code.  Traditional 3br side by side duplexes might be a nice fit along Carlton to blend with the existing neighborhood.  At about 1500sf per side rents will be around 1600 a month which leaves a construction budget of $320k, give or take.  Duplexes on lots that wide would need a variance, and I'm not sure whether those rents will fly on the bleeding north edge of Eastown, but they might.  On Fulton something more modern or commercial would certainly be appropriate, I would say 3-4 stories in overall height.  It would be nice to see something take shape before housing runs out of steam again.  This isn't a historic district, so the possibilities are open.

 

I would have agreed that this is on the "bleeding edge" of Eastown a few years ago (I actually didn't even realize it was technically Eastown), but I think as inventory of rentals continues to tighten, people are looking for "the next closest hip neighborhood" that is relatively safe and convenient. From a marketing standpoint, you can't beat the value proposition now (as I stated earlier): walking distance to Eastown, walking distance to FSFM and Midtown/Brikyaat, biking distance to downtown, across the street from a recently remodeled grocery store (they even put in new privacy fences along the perimeter).

 

I would also say it's even a tad less marginal than Uptown Village when it was built. Wouldn't you say LighthouseDave?

 

If you look at crimemapping over the last 3 months, it's a bunch of nuisance crimes (other than one armed robbery in October). No different than the rest of Eastown.

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I wonder if Greg Gilmore has reached out to the likes of Derek Coppess, or vise versa.  As you pointed out Jeff, I really think this is a great location too.  The way the rental market is in town, I would be surprised if this property didn't get picked up by some developer in the next 12 months.  This plot of land certainly has received a lot of press lately, not bad for Gilmore.

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I wonder if Greg Gilmore has reached out to the likes of Derek Coppess, or vise versa.  As you pointed out Jeff, I really think this is a great location too.  The way the rental market is in town, I would be surprised if this property didn't get picked up by some developer in the next 12 months.  This plot of land certainly has received a lot of press lately, not bad for Gilmore.

 

I doubt it. I think 616 is focusing on other areas, and I hear they're going to make a major push into the Creston area..

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  • 1 month later...

GRUrbanist: 

 

I cant seem to find this on the MiBiz website, but it appears, according to the hard copy, that the plot of land that was to become the Family Fare gas station has a plan in place for something far more appealing.

 

Orion Construction has plans for a 7.4 Million mixed-use project that tentatively called "One Carlton Place" will have 44 rental units "with a mix of regular apartments and ground-floor townhomes, along with ground-floor retail and restaurant space".

 

There are no renderings, according to the article. I also didnt see any statement on the height.

 

 

So this is a big win for the area, and will well-anchor that part of the district! Cant wait to see what it will look like.

 

 

http://mibiz.com/news/design-build/item/22109-orion-plans-

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