Accident Fund will expand

[hood]

If they were to add another two floors that would really help the building to be impressive in size, the same goes for the ramp. But I don't understand how a private developer could build over a city-owned ramp, that would be a touchy deal, and how would they work out taxes?

[RustTown]

Hood, before the ramp was sold (or was it given?) to the city by the Boji's the Boji's bought the air rights above the deck. I remember thinking that was very odd at the time. They bought it under the of a newly created limited liability company by the name of "Townsend Condominiums" or something to that extent. I remember them telling me in the email that they were doing this in case of any future expansions, and that this could actually be for residential penthouses or office space.

In other words, the Boji's are very smart and covered their bases early. The city asked them to build the parking ramp for them, and they then bought it for cheap.

[hood]

I realized that they bought air rights it just seems like an interesting situation, building a private structure onto a city owned one, I wonder if it can handle additional parking floor also, if the city wanted to buy back air rights.

[RustTown]

I seriously doubt that Boji's are going to sell or give back the air rights, but I'm sure it can hold two more floors of parking, but I hope they don't.

And really, it's not that odd. Well, maybe in Lansing, but there are plenty of larger cities where buildings are built over other buildings, or onto other buildings. And this really wouldn't be that weird since it's only a parking structure.

[hood]

It does seem a little un-economical to build a permanent structure over a parking deck. Parking decks have a life span of no more than 40 years, usually much less, since the rennovations often end up costing more than a new ramp. That is especially so in pre-fab ramps because I'm not sure they even can be resurfaced and repaired as easily as a poured in place ramp. As far as I know ramps intended to built onto are usually steel structure since they can be completly stripped to bare structure and redone.

[RustTown]

I'm pretty sure the Townsend Ramp was poured in place.

[hood]

Everything I seen go up on it, from columns to floor plates, was pre-fab, the only thing poured that I know of was the foundation

[RustTown]

I think you're right. What I do know is that there are quite a few of these structures around the country and world.