Thousands of us drive along Michigan Avenue, Grand River Avenue and M-43 on a daily basis.
For many, it is the Lansing area’s main gateway, the only direct east-west shot to the Capitol. And while unique, it needs work.
Some areas, such as the Stadium District near the Capitol, have been reinvigorated, with adult stores and bars razed and replaced with a baseball stadium, new apartments and condos, restaurants and updated streetscapes. Others are a tired mix of small business storefronts and houses. Still others have taken on a suburban look, with strip malls and parking lots dotting the landscape.
Chances are, you have an idea of something you’d fix. More tree-lined medians, perhaps. Or safer routes for walkers and bikers.
RELATED: Check out an interactive map here at www.lsj.com.
Maybe you’ve noticed work on new apartments private developers are building near Harrison Road and Michigan Avenue in East Lansing.
Ideas and projects like these are reshaping the conversation about the future of the 20-mile stretch from the Capitol in downtown Lansing to Grand River in East Lansing and east to Webberville just past M-52.
Planners this spring collected ideas for the corridor from the public, developers and community leaders. Their goal: Work them into a comprehensive evaluation of land use, environmental concerns and public transit along the corridor that will preserve the character inherent along the stretch of roadway while bringing a degree of cohesiveness.
Developers lead change
When Dale Inman found the copy shop building along Michigan Avenue in East Lansing nearly two years ago, it was a small-box retail operation surrounded by a parking lot next door to a gas station.
The Oakland County-based developer envisioned a four-story apartment building near the intersection of Harrison Road he hoped to market to Michigan State University students. But he and his team had a crucial flaw in their original design: They had the front door opening onto neighboring Beal Street.
That ran counter to the general ideas regional planners have for improving Michigan Avenue: A vibrant corridor full of places to live, eat and shop. With modern streetscapes. And rapid public transit. Something livelier than the tired spots found along the main route to the Capitol.
The city wanted changes. The building needed to face Michigan Avenue. Make it brick, like MSU’s West Circle dormitories across the street. And parking should be out of sight.
“We scratched our heads and said, ‘We can make that work.’ ” said Inman, managing partner of Wolf River Development Co. LLC, which has offices in West Bloomfield and Troy.
Private developers such as Inman are leading the revitalization of the Michigan Avenue one project at a time. That comes even as planners work behind the scenes on a much broader plan that likely will take decades: Overhauling a 20-mile stretch of the region’s main corridor from the Capitol east to Webberville, including Grand River Avenue and M-43.
There has been talk of revamping the main artery through the Lansing area for years, but little has been done to update infrastructure or spur new business growth in a coordinated way. Instead, the main thoroughfare from downtown Lansing to Grand River Avenue — or M-43 — in East Lansing, Meridian Township and points east is a hodgepodge collection of urban contemporary design, empty storefronts and suburban sprawl.
Developers are moving on projects along the corridor, primarily on Lansing’s east side and into East Lansing.
Besides Inman’s team — which also plans to buy the BP gas station next door to 550 Michigan to build additional apartments — Lansing developer Pat Gillespie plans to start building a four-story, $6.8 million residential project in September he calls Midtown on the site of the razed Silver Dollar Saloon and Dollar nightclub.
And developers Chris Jerome and Joel Ferguson are lining up investors for the $100 million-plus Capital Gateway mixed-use project on the 61-acre closed Red Cedar Golf Course. If it comes together, it would be the largest single redevelopment on Michigan Avenue in years, if ever.
Planners say the private sector’s push will help renew the overall development process along the corridor. They reason that new developments — business and residential — will bring in more people, justifying spending on rapid transit and other public services. They say private investment in one spot can be the catalyst for more.
And some developers, such as Wolf River, already are incorporating some of the community’s priorities — such as no large parking lots and buildings that line the sidewalk — into projects before they have been adopted as part of a master plan.
“We’re not going to ever … stop development. It’s like building the bus while you’re riding it,” said Susan Pigg, executive director of the Tri-County Regional Planning Commission, which is leading the long-term discussions known as a charrette. “We’re at a perfect time to start looking into the future.”
Different identities
Drive east down Michigan Avenue from the Capitol, and you’ll inevitably notice the street takes on different identities.
High-rises downtown. Bars and baseball in the Stadium District. Sparrow Hospital. Eclectic small businesses and on-street parking.
Head farther east toward the Frandor Shopping Center and you’ll see large surface parking lots and difficult pedestrian access near the U.S. 127 overpass. That segues into houses and tree-lined streets across from MSU.
Connect with Grand River and the landscape starts out as an urban college town in East Lansing before quickly shifting into suburbia toward Okemos, and rural past Marsh Road en route to Webberville.
Each section has its own character, but together they are inconsistent, Pigg said. She believes coordinated attention to land use, environmental concerns and transportation can unite the entire corridor without imposing universal “cookie-cutter” values on places as different as Lansing and Meridian Township.
The tri-county commission received a three-year, $3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to fund a series of projects, including the planning effort known as charrette. In essence, a charrette condenses months of meetings — which national consultants say often revert to top-down, rather than collaborative, solutions because it takes too long to make decisions — into a single week.
Participants offered suggestions about the kinds of public services the corridor needed during Lansing’s charrette in May. Priorities included better bicycle and pedestrian access, tree-lined streets and distinct districts linked by public transit.
Peter Ryan moved his business, Capital City Collectibles, in and out of storefronts along East Michigan Avenue in Lansing before settling in the 2000 block with Everybody Reads bookstore.
The avenue, in its current form, is “struggling,” Ryan said. He’d like to see an anchor store, such as a grocer, move in to fill vacant retail spaces and bring more people in from the surrounding neighborhoods.
On his block, also home to The Green Door bar and Emil’s restaurant, Ryan senses community. Shop owners share each other’s business cards. They know each other by name. He likes the cohesiveness of Lansing’s Old Town district and wants it to be replicated on Michigan Avenue.
“Right here, especially, we’re heavily community-based,” he said. “This block, these two blocks, have a real feel to it. Definitely keep the flavor.”
Untapped potential
A case study in transforming Michigan Avenue can be found on Lansing’s far east side, starting at the Red Cedar Golf Course and moving into East Lansing. Developers are eyeing this area as the market with the greatest untapped potential. Few new buildings are rising west of U.S. 127 — Scott Gillespie’s Avenue Flats apartments at Michigan and Marshall Street is an exception — or in the suburbs along Grand River Avenue.
But the private sector has found opportunity with property primed for sale, as well as lenders who are increasingly willing to finance these types of projects as the economy improves.
“To me, public planning is extremely important, but I’ve never seen that trump the realities of the marketplace itself,” said Bob Trezise, president and CEO of Lansing Economic Area Partnership Inc., the region’s economic development organization. “And what happens is the public and private sector get together case by case and try to find that balance. That’s exactly where we are right now.”
Pat Gillespie said he is reviewing financing offers for the Midtown project, which will include 66 one- and two-bedroom apartments and an unnamed bank office on the ground floor. Inman and Mike Dowdle, managing partners with Wolf River, say their apartments will be ready for MSU students to move in by August, the same month work should start on 39 studio and two-bedroom apartments on the site of the BP gas station next door.
Taking the lead
Private business needs to take the lead on the corridor because every new housing development brings more residents to support an expanded public transit system, said Debbie Alexander, assistant executive director of the Capital Area Transportation Authority.
CATA now runs its No. 1 bus line from downtown Lansing to the Meridian Mall in Okemos. By 2017, Alexander said, transportation planners want to replace it with an estimated $215 million bus rapid transit system that would be much like a light-rail operation but less costly.
Platforms would be installed along Michigan and Grand River avenues and buses would have multiple doors on both sides for easier boarding. Like rail, fares would be paid at the stations and buses would operate in designated travel lanes. The Federal Transit Administration could offer up to $75 million in construction funding if the project advances through a development phase, Alexander said.
Trezise said he is encouraged.
“I am extremely bullish about Michigan Avenue,” he said. “That is the backbone of our region. Five, six years ago, seven years ago, there was no discussion about Michigan Avenue. None. It wasn’t even raised as an issue. So I think it’s very positive.”
Under construction
A number of developments are in the works along Michigan Avenue. Developers say they are able to secure financing and find property. Projects include:
• Capital Gateway: A $100 million-plus overhaul of the closed Red Cedar Golf Course in Lansing. The 61-acre site would include student and professional housing, retail and dining options and recreation venues under a proposal from developers Chris Jerome and Joel Ferguson. It also would incorporate two closed auto dealerships adjacent to the golf course owned by Jerome’s family.
• Midtown: A planned $6.8 million apartment building on the site of the former Silver Dollar Saloon and Dollar nightclub in Lansing that would include space for a bank. Developer Pat Gillespie said he is reviewing financing offers and could break ground in September.
• 500 and 550 Michigan Ave.: Wolf River Development Co. LLC, of Oakland County, is working on two apartment buildings across from MSU in East Lansing. The first, to be finished in August, will include 16 four-bedroom units targeted at students. Work on the second, at the BP gas station next door, should begin in August. That project will include 39 studio and two-bedroom units.
The many faces of Michigan Avenue
East Michigan Avenue from the Capitol in downtown Lansing to Grand River Avenue in downtown East Lansing and M-43 east of the suburban areas can be divided into several sections, each with its own characteristics:
• Downtown Lansing/Stadium District: High-rise office buildings mix with bars and restaurants to create an entertainment district near Cooley Law School Stadium, home to the Lansing Lugnuts minor league baseball team. Buildings line the sidewalks. Parking is metered on-street or in ramps.
• Sparrow Health System: The hospital near Pennsylvania Avenue — and its associated medical buildings across Michigan Avenue — includes its own parking garage. Several office buildings nearby have medical tenants. More surface parking lots appear.
• Holmes to Clemens: A mix of standalone houses, buildings that line the sidewalk and buildings with parking lot frontage. No uniform design.
• 2000 block: Eclectic businesses and on-street parking include the Avenue Cafe (formerly Gone Wired); Everybody Reads bookstore; and Emil’s restaurant. Described by business owners as having a sense of community.
• 2100 block to U.S. 127, near Frandor Shopping Center: Variety of surface parking lots in front of businesses and buildings that line the sidewalk.
• U.S. 127 to Harrison Road: Difficult pedestrian or bicycle access. No major development. Red Cedar Golf Course once was the main attraction and now is poised for a sprawling development of retail, residential and recreation.
• Harrison Road to Grand River Avenue: Largely residential, tree-lined street across from Michigan State University.
• Grand River Avenue to Hagadorn Road: Multi-story, mixed-use buildings on a divided boulevard in downtown East Lansing. Median disappears east of MSU’s campus at Bogue Street. Development along Grand River consists of largely student apartments on the south and strip malls with large surface parking lots on the north.
• Grand River Avenue between Hagadorn and Marsh roads:Mostly suburban, with strip malls and surface parking lots.
• Grand River Avenue from Marsh Road to Webberville: Largely rural.
What’s next
The team organizing the Michigan Avenue charrette process with the Tri-County Regional Planning Commission expects to return in October to expand on the results of community discussions in May.
Lansing Economic Area Partnership Inc. is organizing Corridor Improvement Authorities in Lansing and East Lansing to capture local taxes that will fund infrastructure improvements to roads, sidewalks, bicycle lanes, trees and building facades. Tax-increment financing districts likely will be drawn in Lansing from Pere Marquette Drive to the East Lansing border, and in East Lansing from the Lansing border along Grand River Avenue, LEAP President and CEO Bob Trezise said. Revenue estimates were unavailable, Trezise said, due to declining property tax values in recent years. He added that it will take years — potentially a decade — before the corridor authorities are generating adequate revenue.
