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GR Press moving


OneSweetWorld

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Yes, the Press does seem to have moved quite a ways right. Years ago, it was a very middle of the road paper, endorsing Democrats and moderate Republicans. When the Press endorse McCain and Palin in 2008 (one of only a handful of papers in the country to do so), I was amazed.

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The Press's clear right-wing bias over the years left many readers cold but the lack of another option also left them with little choice for a mixture of local and national news. The advent of the internet and smart phones suddenly provided these readers with easy access to alternatives they didn't have before and the decline of the GR Press was on. Increasingly busy lifestyles that make it more difficult to find the time to sit down and read an entire newspaper every day and the desire of readers to get their news in smaller "bites" only exacerbated the problem.

Many left wing papers left their readers cold also. The newspaper industry's decline has been uniform across the political spectrum.

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Agreed, it's not a left- or right-wing thing, the industry is simply dying. Craigslist, Monster and Facebook deals leave no reason to read the newspaper for the ads. There's an overabundance of internet news and commentary available too and only so many hours in the day.

Granted, if I spent an hour looking over a well balanced newspaper, I'd be a bit wiser. Instead, I spend that hour getting sucked into some obscure minutiae from Swedish junior hockey websites wondering who the Red Wings should draft next year. That's the beauty and the curse of the web.

On a brighter note, I heard the new Mlive office had an open house today. Nothing about it on their website though.

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Don't see U-M following suit. Michigan has forged some links with GVSU (in the kinesiology department) and a Regents' meeting was held in GR last year. Still, the U-M Medical Center and Med School are closely linked and unified at Ann Arbor. And, those are huge facilities. For example, the total square footage of the MSU medical school and the new DeVos hospital, and I believe some other projects on Pill Hill was no greater than the new Women's and Children's hospital in Ann Arbor -- about 1 million square feet. MSU, with a younger and more clinically based medical school, needed GR and its large hospitals much more than U-M does.

While it is good that MSU might be using the GR Press lot for a new building, it would be irritating if instead it just became a parking lot (and one, presumably off the tax rolls).

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Don't see U-M following suit. Michigan has forged some links with GVSU (in the kinesiology department) and a Regents' meeting was held in GR last year. Still, the U-M Medical Center and Med School are closely linked and unified at Ann Arbor. And, those are huge facilities. For example, the total square footage of the MSU medical school and the new DeVos hospital, and I believe some other projects on Pill Hill was no greater than the new Women's and Children's hospital in Ann Arbor -- about 1 million square feet. MSU, with a younger and more clinically based medical school, needed GR and its large hospitals much more than U-M does.

While it is good that MSU might be using the GR Press lot for a new building, it would be irritating if instead it just became a parking lot (and one, presumably off the tax rolls).

Agreed on the UofM comments.

I can't see MSU using the main Press site/building just for parking though, not for the price they paid. There's a lot of parking underneath their building.

Yes, there's an article on MLive now. Most likely the Publisher and Managing Editor knew, but were probably locked down in confidentiality agreements, IIHTG.

Do you think the folks in the Grand Rapids Press room even know about the sale yet? :P I would imagine that this building is going to sit empty for a while, but who knows....

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I don't think that there is any doubt that the rank and file (or what is left of it) at the Press knew that the building ultimately would be sold. MLive has already announced its new quarters, and given the tremendous staff reductions, there was no need for the old Press building, which was built in 1965 when the Press probably employed 400-500 people (pressmen, linotype operators, copy editors, classified staff, display staff, photogs, librarians and reporters).

Good point about the price -- hopefully, MSU will use it for something good. One commenter on the MLive blog thought that it might be student housing. Not sure about that; and there must be plenty of apartments available in Heritage Hill. MSU Medical School is not known as a big research med school (more focused on clinical training) but with some additional facilities, who knows? That would be very good for GR.

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Big news:

http://www.lansingst..._medium=twitter

MSU bought the building and all the parking lots North of I-196.

This is actually some pretty exciting news. As for use, The least surprising result would be demolition for parking, with the land on Michigan being repurposed for building expansion in a decade or two.. and the properties in Monroe North remaining as parking for some time longer, with maybe half of them being sold off to other people over the years.

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In the Mlive article about the sale it mentions that they have no immediate plans. So i'm assuming they will enjoy the convenient parking immediately. It mentions they may want to use the press property for lab space. What I dont want to see is the Press building and all the associated properties remain status quo because MSU ends up never needing them and just sitting on it for years. Perhaps I just had lofty hopes for that intersection.

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Agreed. I hope they don't lock the space up and forget about it. I heard they knew the MSU medical building was too small when they built it; maybe something will happen in stages a few years down the road.

Joe

In the Mlive article about the sale it mentions that they have no immediate plans. So i'm assuming they will enjoy the convenient parking immediately. It mentions they may want to use the press property for lab space. What I dont want to see is the Press building and all the associated properties remain status quo because MSU ends up never needing them and just sitting on it for years. Perhaps I just had lofty hopes for that intersection.

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I can't imagine a better scenario than what has happened. It's better than ending up in the hands of one of the land hoarders downtown that would sit on it as retirement investment.

Although I guess I was wrong that parking wasn't needed. Sounds like the ramp is way too expensive for students and some staff.

I wouldn't be surprised if an announcement is made within a couple of years of an expansion. Having been in the Press building though, I find it unfathomable that they would reuse it for medical research.

In the Mlive article about the sale it mentions that they have no immediate plans. So i'm assuming they will enjoy the convenient parking immediately. It mentions they may want to use the press property for lab space. What I dont want to see is the Press building and all the associated properties remain status quo because MSU ends up never needing them and just sitting on it for years. Perhaps I just had lofty hopes for that intersection.

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Talked to a friend who works for MSU. Parking costs a ton there and they're excited to have something cheaper. They're for sure tearing down the building, just haven't announced that yet. Thought that it would be a few years before they build anything as they lease space from VAI and that's not up for 5 more years. They are talking about how to do a skywalk/tunnel from there to the hill and that the new building would be collaborative with other intitutions, too - not just MSU.

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I can't imagine a better scenario than what has happened. It's better than ending up in the hands of one of the land hoarders downtown that would sit on it as retirement investment.

Although I guess I was wrong that parking wasn't needed. Sounds like the ramp is way too expensive for students and some staff.

I wouldn't be surprised if an announcement is made within a couple of years of an expansion. Having been in the Press building though, I find it unfathomable that they would reuse it for medical research.

You got that right. Any buildings now constructed for medical or research purposes must be designed with very sophisticated air handling, fire suppression and other utilities. For example, the new Mott Women's and Children's hospital in Ann Arbor has 20-foot floors -- 10 feet for occupancy and 10 feet for the utilities.

The Press building is toast. It will be an interesting demolition, though; it was built to house heavy linotype machines and presses and should be a doozy to take down.

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In the Mlive article about the sale it mentions that they have no immediate plans. So i'm assuming they will enjoy the convenient parking immediately. It mentions they may want to use the press property for lab space. What I dont want to see is the Press building and all the associated properties remain status quo because MSU ends up never needing them and just sitting on it for years. Perhaps I just had lofty hopes for that intersection.

\

MJLO:

Your thinking is that of a community steward. Your thoughts are less lofty than they are the pragmatic concern of a citizen that, like myself, does not want our tremendous multi-decade growth phenomenon to be adversely affected by an out-of-town concern that may not share the rest of Downtown GR's growing practice of mixed-use/synergistic development (i.e. - though MSU College of Human Medicine is here, the thought processes and lack of knowledge about Downtown GR's hard-learned downtown development practices of mixed-uses and synergy are not necessarily a tradition of Lansing's urban development mindset). Said another way, "SITTING ON KEY PROPERTY IN KEY LOCATIONS DOWNTOWN KILLS OPPORTUNITIES FOR BEST AND HIGHEST USE DEVELOPMENTS TO EXTEND DOWNTOWN'S GROWTH".

A Press-orchestrated addendum to their deal with MSU that in some way would have ensured a reversion of the property back to The Press for re-presentation for sale (and location of more convention district-/hotel-/retail-/housing-/office-related mixed use options) in the event that no significant development proposal came forth in a reasonable period could have gone far to keep development pressure on this long-languishing and tremendously world-class development footprint. The value and inter-connectability of the Press site as an extension of the Convention District and as a site for a retail/office/housing gateway connecting the North Monroe/Northgate area to Central Downtown/Calder Plaza should never be understated or ignored.

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^ I like the way he thinks lol. That could have been a great location for some really nice office or apartments, im still glad to see something other then the press building. MSU's 2nd building will add on and make another great addition to the already great medical mile. Thus creating more and more jobs. Soon all those new jobs will create new retail along monroe and ottawa and Ionia.

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I definitely agree that it is good news and don't mind that parcel sitting empty for a while. My only concern would be if the college decided not to use it for a long time. Land can pretty easily sit in a Universities hands and be "forgotten" for a long period of time (look at U of M and McKay Tower).

I definitely hope this turns into another large campus downtown!

Joe

I can't imagine a better scenario than what has happened. It's better than ending up in the hands of one of the land hoarders downtown that would sit on it as retirement investment.

Although I guess I was wrong that parking wasn't needed. Sounds like the ramp is way too expensive for students and some staff.

I wouldn't be surprised if an announcement is made within a couple of years of an expansion. Having been in the Press building though, I find it unfathomable that they would reuse it for medical research.

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I can't imagine a better scenario than what has happened. It's better than ending up in the hands of one of the land hoarders downtown that would sit on it as retirement investment.

Agree 100%, as far as the Press building is concerned. MSU is going to sit on the property for at least a few years, but it was going to sit vacant for a long time regardless. I had lofty visions of mixed-use development there too, but for that to happen, it would take several years for a developer to buy the land, and several more to even put out a proposal (if we're lucky), which may or may not end up getting built. We've only known about the Press' relocation since November, and already we find out MSU is posturing for future expansion. To me, that's exciting. For all that the community has invested in the Medical Mile, we shouldn't consider it "finished" by any stretch of the imagination.

MSU has already poured a lot of money into establishing a solid steel footprint here, so they have every incentive to make it as nice and state-of-the-art as possible. They're already community stewards, not just out-of-towners from Lansing.

I'm a little more concerned about the surface lots north of the expressway, because I'm worried MSU will want those parking spaces forever now.

A Press-orchestrated addendum to their deal with MSU that in some way would have ensured a reversion of the property back to The Press for re-presentation for sale (and location of more convention district-/hotel-/retail-/housing-/office-related mixed use options) in the event that no significant development proposal came forth in a reasonable period could have gone far to keep development pressure on this long-languishing and tremendously world-class development footprint.

The Press has no incentive to do anything with this property other than unload it at the best price they can get. There's nothing wrong with that.

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