Members of the Lansing business and political community came together today for the official opening of the newest addition to Michigan Avenue: The Midtown.
The complex, located at 3433 E. Michigan Ave., has been home to a PNC Bank for the last 90 days and started accepting tenants at the end of August. The colorful building, which has a logo that incorporates the Chinese character 家 (which means “home”), broke ground on Oct. 31, 2013 at the site of the former Silver Dollar Saloon. It’s meant to stand out along Michigan Avenue, which can see upwards of 40,000 cars per day.
“We went around the country and saw what is successful,” Pat Gillespie, the CEO of the Gillespie Group, said, adding that he drew inspiration from other capital cities. “We went to Nashville, Columbus (Ohio), Indianapolis, and Madison. All of them have color.
“If you turn around and look [across Michigan Ave.] you’ll see a brown building which has a mixture of beige,” he said, pointing to the apartment complexes on the East Lansing side. “We said ‘let’s be like these communities that we talk about wanting to be so often.’ Not everyone likes it, but we have enough to fill the building in a hurry.”
The $6.8 million 66-unit, mixed-used development currently features the high-end apartments, the 1,800-square-foot PNC Bank branch, and a rebuilt Altu’s Ethiopian Cuisine in the adjacent strip. The complex is at 87 percent occupancy with a special emphasis being placed on international students at MSU and young professionals (50 percent of tenants are international).
It will soon add a Biggby Coffee in near the old PNC Bank site along with the opening of the Detroit-based Battery Giant on Oct. 11.
“These guys are the blessing that I’ve been looking for,” Bob Cavin, managing partner of Battery Giant, said. Cavin, an MSU alumnus and Detroit native, said that he chose the Midtown location because of its proximity to his alma mater as well as the possibilities for growth.
“It’s about having diversity of businesses and having the right partners,” Cavin said. “You’ve got to have visibility and you’ve got to have people that are willing to be risk takers.”
The transformation of the site from the dilapidated Silver Dollar to the Midtown was aided by the Ingham County Land Bank – which took over the land when the Silver Dollar was foreclosed in 2006 (it was demolished in 2009).
“As we investigated [the Silver Dollar], we found fire damage that caused structural issues that made reuse very difficult, if not impossible,” Eric Schertzing, Ingham County Treasurer and director of the Land Bank said. “The other thing that was true about the previous use of this property, the neighborhoods in East Lansing had become very concerned with what was going on because it was overflowing into the neighborhood.”
Schertzing said that he met with members of the nearby East Lansing neighborhoods this past weekend and said that they are on board with the Midtown. Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero, while touting the success of the Land Bank and endorsing Schertzing’s run for Congress to replace the retiring Mike Rogers, said that that the rebirth of the area was thanks in large part to Gillespie and the Land Bank’s cooperation.
“This property could’ve sat vacant for years,” Bernero said. “This Michigan Avenue corridor is our jewel.
“From the campus to the Capitol, this spells opportunity for us,” he added, saying that maybe the city hadn’t taken full advantage of the area bordering MSU before. “When you get somebody willing to invest, they don’t want obstacles, roadblocks, and bureaucratic bull crap. I couldn’t be more proud to be mayor in a region that understand it’s all about collaboration.”
Source: Mlive.com