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Stadium District


hood

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I have been reading this forum for awhile, and finally have figured out how to reply. I too am very pleased with the look of the Stadium District, I like the new renderings quite a bit more than the old. I am glad they are finally placing condos downtown for those who want the city lifestyle but don't want to rent. It seems that some of the city programs such as the NEZ are really serving their purpose.

It looks like Gillespie is about to launch his website for the Stadium District:

http://www.thestadiumdistrict.com/

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Welcome to our forums, it's been getting sort of dead around hear the past few days and it's nice to have a fresh voice. I hope you plan to stick around :) .

I agree that these tax incentive programs of all types are responsible for almost all urban development projects not only in Lansing, but across the nation. I also have grown to like the new Stadium District proposal. At first I thought it was little bland, but then I realized that this project will offer some VERY nice infill along Michigan Ave. I agree with those many people who have said that this and the Arbaugh could add up to the critical mass Lansing needs to move forward with major projects. You can already see evidence in that with Mr. Fishers lofts. I think that these two projects will open up the entrie Cedar/Larch corridor between Michigan and Shiawassee up to some nice mid rise projects and provide the stability needed to build high rises in the core. We will just have to wait and see...

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Well, I think that the fact that The Arbaugh has been leasing so quickly is a good indication of an exsisting market for housing downtown, which is the first step in creating new projects. However, it seems other projects have not been met with such quick success. For example, it seems (just from looking at it, I don't know their offical occupancy rates) that East Village is progressing slowly at best. In almost two years little more than a handfill of site condos have been built, and the attached condos seem to be slow to sell as well. Is this an indication that downtown is not yet ready for an owner-occupied market? Or is East Village just too far from Downtown to attract young professionals?

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East Village is just beyond downtown, so I don't even consider it in the same market. It's a whole different type of living than what is being offered in the city center.

I also didn't expect East Village to take off. I always imagined it as being a bit more organic and taking more time to grow. But with the new school nearly complete, that should also help in selling them. I really don't think it's been going terribly slow, and never expected the whole neighborhood to be built at once. In fact, the whole lead up to development always cautioned that the development was going to be built in phases contingent upon demand. Remember, the redevelopment of the city is still in its infancy, and people are still leaving. We're not dealing with a Sunbelt Sprawler that rakes in thousands of new residents a year. All things considered, Lansing is doing pretty well when compared to other cities in the region in housing.

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I don't have any knowledge of this area, but I do like the layout of the first proposal better than the second because the wings of the building would shield most of the parking lot from view and make the block seem more dense. Also, it would be great if parking could be consolidated in a covered ramp under one of the wings per the original site plans. ...and what happened to the loft/multi-story units and that cool corner tower?

What was the reason for the changes and cut in the size of the project?

Budget?

Demand for residential units?

Edit: before it is misinterpreted that I don't like the design now, I want to clarify that I do. It looks like a good quality building that could really improve a block. However, if presented with both the first and second as options for the site, I would pick the first.

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Yeah, the original idea would have been more difficult to construct (i.e. more expensive, more materials...) The new design is much more practical and less "cartoony." I had always suspected the design was going to change. Gillespie was originally playing the design off of Oldsmobile Park (Lugnuts Stadium) right across the street.

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The only thing that I'm truely dissapointed about with this plan is that it doesen't allow for any two floor open spaces, for a brew pub or club or something. Trhe origional plan would of included a two story "atrium" on the corner of Cedar and Michigan, in the rounded part, I think that would of been pretty nice.

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Here is my own conceptual site plan for what I think should be built on the parking lot behind the Stadium District:

siteplansketch2.jpg

The rowhouses should be built to 3-4 floors. People could buy single residence 3 or 4 floor rowhouse or a 2 unit 4 floor rowhouse. These should be highly customizable and built independantly of one another. For instance people could choose between a detached garage, allowing for more of a yard or could have an attached garage on the rear, but the driveway would take up half the yard. Allow people to have rooftop yards and whatever else their willing to pay for that still fits in with the basic design scheme. these should be New York style rowhouses, NOT Chicago or any other style.

The parking ramp should be built to about the height of the Stadium District, but it's main roof should be the same height or less than the Stadium District's main roof, so between 6-8 floors depending on floor to floor height.

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hey hood,

The housing along Larch is great, and if people started to TRULY 'believe in Lansing', and started to move back to downtown, those properties would be HOT. The four story plan, would be a tough sell, from a real estate brokers perspective, the largest demographic of buyers (baby boomers) HATE, HATE, HATE stairs, they are starting to realize their knees won't support them forever. All developments need to realize that a few properties need to have some fun multi floor units, but also ranches or just two stories. Also three and four story properties are horrible to heat and cool, contrary to what any hvac person will tell you they are a nightmare.

I think you would do better to bring the height down on the parking ramp, since its behind the development, its sort of...private, and therefore the public would be less likely to actually use it.

Elevate the yards to the roof, so the sun hits them, and they insulate the houses. The attached garages are a huge, huge, huge selling point, its Michigan, and buyers hate to be reminded of the deficiencies of their property (walking with groceries from the garage, through the snow, to the house).

Problem is... I think there's a water treatment facility behind them, which would be a hardsell.

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I don't think the storage tanks behind here would be a problem, they actually may be a benifit. The top of them has actually been turned into a park, so people with their properties backing up to it would have a guarunteed view of downtown.

I don't really think that the parking ramp height would be much of a problem, I think it should be built the same height or slightly shorter than the Stadium District. It should also be a city ramp, since the city did reserve the right to build a ramp, if anything it could step back at higher levels to allow for better views of residents in the rear of the building.

As for the rowhouses, I really think that they should be 3-4 floors, I realize that would be hard to sell, but it's only 20 lots and I think that over time those lots could be sold individually and the buildings built individualy. They should be highly customizable on the interior. With the plan I show they would be about 1,000 sq. ft. per floor, it could be less if somone wanted a lot of open space or atrium. If some one wanted, they could even have an elevator in their unit. The idea is that these would be the premier residences in the entire Lansing area, they would likely be $400,000+ so I wouldn't expect to see them go up anytime soon. However, I don't see any reason why Gillespie couldn't market them or something like them now. He already owns the land so he wouldn't take any risk himself. He could sell them off lot by lot from the south so he wouldn't even lose any parking in the meantime. As for the design of these, I'm thinking something like these: (this is only a cheap model, but this general style)

Magnuson-rowhouse-kitbash-State.jpg

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In many cities, a lot of the old row houses that are three and four floors have been split into two units. It's not only an issue of stairs but in houses the size of the one's above, there is quite a bit of space, usually more space than people would ever want. Maybe if the single units were three floors and the stacked "duplex" would be four?

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Well for some persons four floors would be appropriate, I was saying that any four floor units would be primarily for two units but if someone wanted they they could build a 4 story single unit. It would still only be 4,000 sq. ft. their are many houses bigger than that.

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4000 square feet is appropriate....where the hell do you live? The average house is 1500 square feet. 3000 square feet is a very large house. 4000 is very very large, and typically for a full family. At this point in time, its not families that would be moving into these units. Larch is to busy for a family to move in to (no one with a toddler wants to live on a three lane road. Your hoping for young people or retired folks. Families want the yard and white picket fence, Larch street and a spectacular view of a parking ramp is not what midwest families buy. If midwest families wanted that, they move to New York or Chicago, with better job opportunities.

There are very few houses in this area that are 4000 square feet.

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Jared,

There are a few of those. Namely Ferris Development, and the Greater Lansing Housing Coalition. To answer your question quite frankly, it's not glamorous, and more importantly, it's not where the money is in the housing market. It is most definitely a noble deed, and I think Lansing is doing pretty good at it.

Particularly the two groups I mentioned above are great because they also do a large amount of reuse projects, which is a MUST in a city who's housing stock is becoming increasingly vacant and abandoned. Just look what Ferris has done for the Eastern Neighbors/Oak Park neighborhoods on and off of East Shiawassee between Penn. and Larch. The area may not look that great, now, but it used to be much worse, and much more crime-filled. What the company has done is renovated and reconstructed these old houses (and built a few news ones that try to blend with the old "workers cottages"), and offered them to low-income families, who so far have kept up their homes making a strong community.

So, don't get the impression that these things aren't going on. They just don't get the press. I worked for a week (our school service week) with the Greater Lansing Housing Coalition (GLHC), and let me tell you, for what they have they do an awesome job in more ways than one, and we had neighbors (usually old-times that had been there for decades) tell us how happy they were to see these old vacant properties reused.

These type of developments take a special kind of person. And by that I mean a person with a lot of patience, and a helluva lot of heart, because they don't exactly become rich doing this.

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Franklin Street Development has done several very nice rehabs of dilapidated housing, which they in turn sell to low income families. From what I know of many of these organizations, they basically are getting grants to spend money on housing that could never warrant the kind of money/upgrades that are spent, if left up to the market. I believe on a couple of houses that Franklin Street redeveloped, they 'lost' around 40k per house, but had they not, the blighted properties would have just sat there.

These organizations also are usually doing housing, where ever they can find a place in targeted neighborhoods at decent prices. So one house here, one house there. Unless getting major press, you would simply think it was the new owner that did the rehab.

The association or realtors donates the funds to upgrade one house per year, in conjunction with the housing coalition. They saved two houses on West Shiawassee street, that were going to be torn down, but due to architectural and age significance were saved. I'm not sure of the addresses, but I believe they are in the 8 or 900 block. They are side by side, one is purple.

Unfortunately, without massive government subsidies, low income housing does pay, and by that I mean, ignoring any profit motive. Simply to get a project to break even, under the guidelines of what low income folks can afford, it just doesn't work.

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4000 square feet is appropriate....where the hell do you live? The average house is 1500 square feet. 3000 square feet is a very large house. 4000 is very very large, and typically for a full family. At this point in time, its not families that would be moving into these units. Larch is to busy for a family to move in to (no one with a toddler wants to live on a three lane road. Your hoping for young people or retired folks. Families want the yard and white picket fence, Larch street and a spectacular view of a parking ramp is not what midwest families buy. If midwest families wanted that, they move to New York or Chicago, with better job opportunities.

There are very few houses in this area that are 4000 square feet.

Most families would not want a 4,000 sq. ft. house, those are typically for execs and relitively rich single or young couples. These might appeal to some higher up proffessors at MSU, architects or an exec that wants urban living. Thats why I wouldn't expect more than 3 or 4 4,000 sq. ft. units to sell, the rest would be 2,000-3,000 sq ft or less.

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Most families would not want a 4,000 sq. ft. house, those are typically for execs and relitively rich single or young couples. These might appeal to some higher up proffessors at MSU, architects or an exec that wants urban living. Thats why I wouldn't expect more than 3 or 4 4,000 sq. ft. units to sell, the rest would be 2,000-3,000 sq ft or less.

Have you ever been in a house that is 4,000 sq ft? 4,000 sq ft is a huge house. You would need an orphanage to support that much square feet, not empty nesters that are rich or professors. 4,000 square feet is so much space that whoever lives there would make that their primary residence. I think you might not realize just how much space 4,000 sq ft is for a single or a young couple.

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Go look out in Okemos, White Hills or along Moores river. There are plenty of houses over 4,000 sq. ft. There are houses over 10,000 sq. ft even, but the typical size house in areas like these seems to be a little over 5,000 sq. ft. I can almost guaruntee that not many of the people in these neighborhood have more than 4 people in their faily, many are just couples. I'm not by any means saying that 4,000 sq. ft is normal, but it is not that uncommon.

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