develop.metrolansing

Lansing's urban development weblog. I don't know who's running this but they've got up-to-date information on several of Lansing's newest buildings. The photo below is the proposal for the "Stadium District," $12 million of apartments, condos, and retail space directly across from Lugnut's Olds Park.
Lansing is truly a city of neighborhoods. Old Town led the urban reclamation of Michigan's capital city. The small but elegant district is populated by art galleries, music venues and the like. This was in stark contrast to Lansint's "downtown," a place notorious for closing down at the same time as nearby offices. While the Washington Avenue strip of restaurants has not remained static, it has forfieted its status as the city's flagship of culture.

Other districts are turning into hotspots. Among them is the Eastside, 1-block containing, a blues bar, the City Pulse, and some of Lansing's best dining (Thai and Italian, mmm). Recent additions of Gone Wired Cafe and Everybody Reads Bookshop have attracted many to this nascent urban island.

Something in my Urban Planning nose tells me that the Stadium District (above) amounts to something of a sea change in Lansing's development trends. The powers-that-be are seeing the potential for an archipeligo of districts along the capital's central Michigan Avenue corridor. At one end there is the old core of restaurants and shops that serve downtown workers (and a handful of law students at Cooley). Along the way there is an assortment of ecclectic activity centers such as this new development, the Eastside, Frandor, and Michigan State University. The terminus could be in East Lansing (which is getting it's own big-name project, the East Village), or the Meridian Mall, or maybe Williamston.

[Note: That last part is pure speculation. There is a lot of activity near R.E.O. Town and in the MotorWheel/Prudden Place area, too. These will probably get posts later on.]