Triangle Site

[hood]

Downtown Triangle to be developed, Southside Community Center possible, From LSJ Midday Updates. I sure hope to hear more tomorrow about this. It's got me wondering if the MSP HQ is going here or if it has to do with the "Association" project. Anyways, this is great to hear, from the sounds of it Ferguson wants to get moving and I wouldn't be at all suprised to see construction begin either before this years out or by next spring.

[RustTown]

Killing two birds with one stone, though, I still hate that it's still going to be a "big office building." Personally, I wanted to see the city divide up the parcel into 3-4 chunks and set out RFP's for each creating a district, and it would force density at the site which isn't forced with only one developer. That site could be so much better developed than that, but it's better than the huge parking lot that's been there for years.

I'm glad that this may bring a community center to the long-suffering Southside. They've been trying to get this done for years. I keep hearing Our Savior tossed around, but I really think that wouldn't be a good location for a Southside Community Center, but they know better than I do what they need and where they need it.

[hood]

I've always thought a good place for a Southside Comminity center is the Old Armory on Washington, it was supposed to be vacated by now. I think the second best choice would be a new building somewhere along Pleasant Grove.

As for the Triangle site, as I've repeated so many times, I think that River St should be rebuilt and the land lotted off into 3-5 parcels (2-3 along the river and 1-2 in the "triangle"). As I said though, I don't think it will be very long at all before we see something going up on this site.

[RustTown]

What armory are you talking about?

[hood]

The one just north of Washington Park, everything going on there was supposed to be transferred to the North MLK Complex.

[RustTown]

Or, you're talking about the National Guard complex. That would be a great location. I really like that area. I can't wait until they do something with that huge parking lot (mostly used for Ingham Regional) just north of the complex, and turn the old rail line into a trail.

[hood]

City gets $2.2M for Triangle property: Ferguson's deal may help bring southside center

The full article doesn't yield much info about what is going to be built on the property, although I'm thinking it's not the MSP Headquarters and it's not the "Association" project. Since the article said that the state "shelved" the plans for an MSP HQ I doubt this is that (although the building is supposedly moving along, but with no word on where it will go), I also doubt it because if that was the project Ferguson would almost certainly be more open about what is going here since the MSP HQ is no secret. I doubt it's the "Association" project since Ferguson describes it simply as a "big office building," so if he was speaking literally, that wouldn't describe what we have been hearing about the "Association" project, especially from the PSD person. I think that it is good that this is likely not either of the large projects that are floating around, since the MSP HQ is still very necessary and will almost certainly be built somewhere else downtown. We may very well end up with at least 4 large developments over the next year or two, all of which we have virtually no details on right now.

[RustTown]

I was dissapointed the article focused more on the Southside Community Center, which is at the very beginning stages of planning. I was expecting more news on this new office building. Oh well. I suspect it will almost certainly be a high-rise, though.

[hood]

I've created a model of what I think should be built on the Triangle Site, or at least on the "Triangle" Portion of it. The office building is 300' tall total, 277' to the roof. It's just over 500,000 sq ft with about 26,000 sq ft floor plates. It is 20 floors and has a small atrium at the point of the building, rising it's entire height.

Overall View:

Atrium:

Parking Ramp:

[RustTown]

Interesting, though, I must say I'm disoriented. Can you label which way we're looking in the first and last renderings?

I do want to see a glass tower, here, that's for sure. I hope Ferguson isn't going to do this on the cheap.

[hood]

The first rendering is looking South West, Grand is along the right of the pic and Kalamazoo is along the top, River St is running diagonal. The second rendering is looking northeast at the corner of Kalamazoo & Grand.

[RustTown]

My problem is that I know this will need parking, but I definitely don't want it at the corner of Grand and Kalamazoo, and putting it along the river wouldn't be great either, which is why I'd like (though I know its highly unlikely) that the city or the developer will build a ramp across Grand on the suface lot currently there.

[hood]

My dad says that he was talking with the person he knows in the MSP and they said that the new headquarters is definately "on" for the triangle site. Lmich, can you change the status for this on Emporis again to proposed? It may very well even be an approved level, I think the city has already passed everything it needed to so they could start tomorrow if they wanted to.

[statedude3]

Do rendering exist of this possible HQ? Is it still the same one from a few years back when the concept was first mentioned?

[hood]

I don't know how similar it will be from the origional proposal, but I don't think it will be as large since the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs won't be in it, and I doubt the state will add in another department besides MSP. How much smaller I don't know, the numbers being tossed around before ranged from like 350,000 sq ft and 10 floors to 600,000 sq ft and 17 floors, with the 600k one being more recent. There are no renderings that I am aware of yet and my dad doesn't wan't to be too nosey. I am pretty comfortable with that this will be a minimum of 10 floors, although I wish they could build more than one office building on such a large site, which Ferguson may very well have decided to do, but I sort of doubt it. Also, the person said that she was suprised it hadn't been announced yet, so I think we can expect something very soon.

[RustTown]

Hood, this will be a different project. The other proposal for the combined MSP and Veterans Affairs is a cancelled project. A new one will have to be added to the database, and until a proposal is released, I'm not comfortable in adding something I have no details on whatsoever.

[hood]

I don't really think this will be a new project so much as a modified one. It will be built on the same land for almost the same purpose as the origional proposal, it will also be done by the same developer, it really doesn't amount to anything "new."

[RustTown]

Ok, so let's say it's modified, there are still no details yet. I'm waiting for Mr. Ferguson to officially propose the project before I change the state of the building to proposed.

[hood]

OK, I was just pointing out that we shouldn't have both the MSP HQ listed as a building in the futrure along with the old proposal as a "Never built" building. Like I said though, the way they were making it sound we should be hearing something pretty soon.

[hood]

This was announced back on the 9th, I guess it never made it over here to UP:

State police proposal revived

To sum it up they plan on building a 148,000 sq ft, $45 million State Police Headquarters at Grand & Kalamzoo on the "Triangle Site." This has been awhile in the making and this time it's looking like it will go through.

[statedude3]

I love how this state is falling into deeper financial debit and laying off people that need jobs, but their going to pay millions a year to be in a new building, instead of spending a few million a single time to fix their current situation.

[bleedgreen]

i guess if anything good comes from this it might be that downtown lansing might "feel" safer...do you think this move could decrease crime rates in the city and promote downtown housing and retail? i definitely agree that the move is unnecessary, but it might bring something good to the table...

[RustTown]

There is already the downtown precinct right in front of the capitol. I've heard many reasons people don't come downtown. Rarely is safety ever brought up.

That said, I'm getting weary of the "the state is in a bad situation" excuse every single time something is proposed. This is what killed the proposal back in 2002 or so. I'm kind of indifferent to this proposal, but if we continued to wait around for the state to magically get better before the state built anything, there wouldn't have been any state office buildings built downtown (i.e. Anderson House, Constitution Hall, Capitol Center...) a few years back, and we wouldn't see anymore for years.

Fact of the matter is that regardless of whether or not they repaired their quarters at MSU, they've been wanting to move, for years, they are cramped, and MSU really wants that site. They are going to have to move sooner or later, anyway. Again, I'm not advocating this current plan, but I also don't advocate this "wait and see...forever" approach where we sit and stagnate to death.

[hood]

The state police would have to spend far more than a few million to meet their needs. That figure was essentially for making temporary fixes. Also, as Lmich said they are cramped, need more space and are scattered in multiple locations.

As for safety downtown, I think most of these people will be office workers, only a handful of actual police. And once again, safety is rarely a concern for the downtown area. Most crime in the area is in the neighborhoods on the fringes of downtown and is definately not random.

[RustTown]

There are very few projects I have ever not wanted to see the light of day, in Lansing, but this is one of them after seeing the renderings, and seeing how poorly the site is going to be used. Even the Lansing State Journal, a paper that rarely ever doesn't endorse downtown development, has written two or three editorials on why this one should fail.

http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/apps/pb...D=2007706110353

Downtown state police HQ nearing approval

State officials are moving ahead with plans for a new state police headquarters, despite criticism that they will be walking away from a $1-a-year lease for their current building.

The State Administrative Board is expected to give a final OK to a 25-year lease-to-own agreement on a planned $45 million downtown Lansing headquarters.