Downtown : In the News

The City of Lansing is examining how a new Ingham County ordinance that allows for chicken raising in non-agricultural urban areas should be handled within city limits.

According to excerpts from the article:

Lansing resident Dale Huber had not announced his three new chicks to his neighbors yet when one did the job for him.

“When they are smaller, they’re not as smart as they are when they’re older. One of them actually got out and there was a knock at the door and here’s the neighbor holding a chicken and he goes, ‘I think this is yours, we see them in the backyard every once and a while,’” Huber said.

Huber, who grew up on a farm, purchased his three hens last March and began raising them in his backyard.

The Ingham County ordinance allows nonagricultural properties in urban areas to keep up to five hens, which cannot be slaughtered an the property.

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Lansing is one of a dozen cities that will benefit from a $223 million federal grant designed to demolish blighted buildings and revitalize neighborhoods.

According to excerpts from the article:

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development on Thursday announced the money as part of $2 billion in Recovery Act funding to states, local governments and nonprofit housing developers under its Neighborhood Stabilization Program.

The Michigan State Housing Development Authority last year applied for $290 million in federal money under the program and proposed launching what's called the "New Michigan Urban Neighborhood" plan with the funds.

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Lansing isn’t the most walkable community in the Capital region, at least not yet. Several organizations both private and public, are working to make the Capital Region much more pedestrian friendly.

According to excerpts from the article:

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2009 was a good year for the Capital region, which welcomed several important economic investments including the $550 million FRIB facility, the Technology Information Center (TIC) and IBM’s move to East Lansing.

According to excerpts from the article:

While Michigan felt the pain of the highest unemployment in the nation, the bankruptcy of GM and Chrysler, a tanking housing market and a sharp slowdown in commercial sales, East Lansing could point to the following developments:

1.) FRIB, okay, Facility for Rare Isotope Beams. The $550 million Department of Energy-funded nuclear physics research facility will be a science facility dedicated answering complex questions about the structure of matter, about the stars, about basic elements on our plan, event how the planet came into existence.

Its practical benefits, as well: $1 billion economic impact over the first decade, 180 new jobs for scientists, 5,800 one-year construction jobs, 220 spin-off jobs.

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The Capital Area Transportation Authority (CATA) is using $1.7 million in federal funds to determine how to improve public transportation through the region’s main business corridor.

According to excerpts from the article:

The money was made available to CATA in February, and the Michigan/Grand River Transportation Study Group was formed four months later. It's goal is to figure out what the business corridor could become.

"What we're looking for here: Is there a better way to handle transportation in the corridor, making it more attractive?" said Jon Coleman, executive director of the Tri-County Regional Planning Commission.

About 1.5 million people use CATA public buses in the Michigan/Grand River corridor each year. That represents more than 13 percent of CATA's ridership in the area.

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Thomas M. Cooley Law School is adding 25,400 linear feet of stack space to its existing library.

According to excerpts from the article

By early next year, it will be an annex to Thomas M. Cooley Law School's library. The two-story structure — once part of Knapp's department store — is in the midst of a $6 million renovation, which will add an all-night study lounge, additional classrooms and 25,400 linear feet of stack space.

The renovated facility, called the Center for Research and Study, will open in piecemeal fashion, a first-floor study area and student lounge first, space for books as it's needed, further study spaces and classrooms on the second floor sometime in the next year or two.

When it's complete, Cooley will have nearly 139,000 square feet of library space in Lansing.

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MSN has rated the Lansing/East Lansing area number two on its Top Five list of the most affordable places in the country to live for median income families.

According to excerpts from the article:

Lansing, located on the banks of the Grand River, is the state capital. A two-hour drive from Detroit, it is next to East Lansing, home of Michigan State University's 5,200-acre campus. Like much of the Midwest, prices in the Lansing area never skyrocketed during the housing boom and remain affordable for most people with a median income.

Homes affordable to median-income families: 96.2%

Affordable homes Q2 2004: 90.6%

Median home price: $88,000

Median family income: $67,000

Unemployment rate: 12.7%

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The Webberville-based Michigan Brewing Company (MBC) opened a new location in Downtown Lansing, drawing beer lovers from around the area.

According to excerpts from the article:

“The concept was to create a place that was going to be a fun place to gather and talk,”said service manager Melinda Carpenter. “Good food, great beer and smooth music playing in the background. No televisions, no smoking; there is definitely no place else like this.”

Well, not outside the family, at least. The pub’s mothership is the original Michigan Brewing Co., headquartered in Webberville. That 76,000-square-foot location serves many functions: brewery, distillery, winery (Michigan Brewing also has its own signature gin, vodka and wine), and home to “Things Beer,” a novelty store, selling T-shirts, beer steins and home brewing supplies.

Owner Bobby Mason had been eying a new Lansing location on Washington Square near Kalamazoo Street since February 2008, but the sluggish economy and recent snafus with liquor license transfers kept the project from hopping along.

The new establishment, simply called MBC, is a bit more focused on the pub side of the business, and with that focus comes a spotlight on food and service. Carpenter formerly managed a fine dining seafood restaurant in Grand Rapids, and she said she’s happy to now call Lansing home. Kitchen manager Stephen Joseph honed his culinary skills at the Lansing area Scalawags restaurants, where he got to know his way around seafood.

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Capital Area Michigan Works! is retraining workers in information technology fields with a $200,000 grant issued by Michigan State University (MSU).

According to excerpts from the article:

There has been a recent surge in demand for candidates with LINUX skills, according to Chris Knapp, executive director of the Capital Area IT Council, a private-sector led group of IT businesses in greater Lansing.

Capital Area Michigan Works will use the $200,000 in funds to immediately enroll candidates into fast-track training in LINUX fundamentals. LINUX skills are critical to landing certain entry-level positions in IT.

“Companies such as Liquid Web, ACD.net and Great Lakes Comnet need candidates with demonstrated skills and aptitude for LINUX,” Knapp said. “Even some of the data centers at the region’s major insurance companies seek the skills.”

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The City of Lansing is investing in a program that will allow Lansing residents to receive tornado warnings and other alerts on their cell phones.

According to excerpts from the article:

The city is launching a community information text-messaging service designed to deliver timely information about emergencies and other events.

With the launch, Lansing will join a growing list of public entities utilizing services that allow residents to receive emergency information via text messages, e-mails and online, said Trent Atkins, Lansing's emergency management chief.

The text-messaging service, projected to go live Dec. 14, will be provided free to the city through Nixle LLC, a privately funded startup that offers secure texting services to public entities and other organizations nationwide. Individuals who sign up for the alerts will receive texts as part of their individual text-messaging plan.

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Local radio personality Michael Patrick Shiels is one of only a few radio hosts who will have both a radio and TV show.

According to excerpts from the article:

Shiels’s show is being simultaneously broadcast on Fox 47 WYSM, making it a footnote in radio history, as it joins the ranks of only a few other radio-TV combos, two of which were produced for national audiences. The defunct Don Imus show was one; another is the long running “Mike and Mike in the Morning” on ESPN.

During a visit to his Michigan Avenue storefront studio last Thursday, Shiels was taking the preparations in stride, as seven robotic cameras were being tested in their final shakedown.

He wasn’t even sure what the program would be, come Monday, but Shiels went about his business in his typical low-key manner, bantering with call-in guests, the weatherman and producer Amanda Wall.

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As part of the planning phase for the new Lansing master plan, Lansing residents are giving their input as to what they’d like the city to look like and that vision could include nixing surface parking lots or strip malls.

According to excerpts from the article:

The first “Design Lansing” community character workshop was held Thursday at the Lansing Center, giving residents an opportunity to “vote” on changes to the city’s first comprehensive master plan effort since the last one was completed in 1958.

The main question now for planners and residents is, “What do we want to transform into?”

“We’re after the big picture,” said Bob Doyle, a project manager from JJR, the firm contracted by the city Planning and Neighborhood Development Department to develop the new master plan. “We try to get a sense of the big picture ideas people are supporting.”

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The Capital region has plenty of late night hangouts. But if you’re not a night owl, it’s hard to find them. Several Michigan State University (MSU) students have set out to introduce the city to their late-night haunts.

According to excerpts from the article:

Late at night, Theio’s “feels like Christmas.”

Regular Sarah Sturgeon said so on a recent Thursday night visit, and taking a step back to watch the bar crowd congregate well into the lazy hours of the early morning, it makes sense.

Like Sturgeon said, it’s like being with your family.There are the drunk and boisterous aunts and uncles and assorted cousins — from those who always know the coolest new bands to the ones sitting in the corner playing Magic cards; there are the quiet types and the gossipers, and, playing the role of grandparents, there’s the waitresses holding it all together.

Sturgeon, 27, said she’s been “doing this” for 13 years. “This” means joining in the kind of atmosphere you can only find in the middle of the night at a 24-hour diner. Theio’s is one of those places that have become a regular part of her routine. “If you’re having a bad day, coffee can fix anything,” she said, gripping a mug in one hand and a hand-rolled cigarette in the other.

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