Even the city of East Lansing needs a face lift every now and then.

But unlike the heavy equipment working on the city center and fountain square projects, this face lift was virtual.

The city unveiled its newest improvement, an upgraded Web site, last week.

The old site had been in place since 1996 but, while it was comprehensive with more than 15,000 pages of information, the site was not interactive or easily upgraded.

“It wasn’t long after (the original site’s) shortcomings began to show,” City Manager Ted Staton said. “(The new site) was designed to be a dynamic, information laden, easy to use site with current news and information people can look at.”

Besides the exterior beauty-type upgrades, many pages of outdated information were removed and new information and features were added.

And the site has also changed addresses from the common governmental site name, www.ci.east-lansing.mi.us to an easier address, www.cityofeastlansing.com.

“You can reach the site by the old address or the new address, either link will take you there but the new name is easier to remember and say,” Kelcey Anderson, Community Events Specialist said.

Several staff members were involved in the planning and implementation of the new site including Judith Taran, the city’s communications director.

Taran said the group talked with city employees about ways they would like to see the site used and how to make it more valuable.

“We recognized the Web is a major communication vehicle and it increases in that capacity more and more,” she said. “People are coming to the Web at home and at work - that makes it a very powerful tool that we needed to make better use of.”

Taran said the group’s three main goals were to make it welcoming and friendly, easy to navigate and easy to update - goals she said were achieved.

The new site will be updated as frequently as needed, from daily to weekly depending on the amount of information that needs to be posted.

Alan McCarrick, the city’s Information Systems Administrator, said while this is a good and exciting start, it isn’t the end all for site upgrades.

“Some of the other goals and objectives we had were to be able to facilitate further growth and technology changes,” he said. “It was built so multiple staff members can be working on upgrading it at the same time, each department can log in and do its own upgrading.”

Staton said the city is anxious for feedback and suggestions concerning the new site.