The owners of the hotel and adjacent office building would be expected to buy the land, said Ted Staton, city manager for East Lansing.

“From time to time, the owners of the hotel (and) office building have wanted to refinance the property, but the fact that the buildings sit on ground owned by another property make these transactions difficult,” he said.

The University Place project was developed in 1986 through the Downtown Development Authority.

“There was a benefit to the city owning the land initially to help use it as an incentive to have the project developed,” said Jim van Ravensway, director of planning and community development for East Lansing.

“Now, 20 years later, that incentive is no longer there.”

Social work senior Maureen Nagy said she hasn’t heard anything about the land and parking garage being on the ballot, but that she didn’t think it would affect students.

“I wouldn’t really care either way, so if I saw that on the ballot, I think I’d just be like ‘yes, go ahead,’” she said.

The issue has been on the East Lansing ballot once before in the past five years.

It passed, but not by a supermajority of 60 percent, and therefore the city was not able to consider selling the land, Staton said.

“Virtually every other time the city has put the sale of land on the ballot, it has overwhelmingly received approval, (so) it was surprising at the time,” van Ravensway said.

The ability to sell city land is determined by the city charter, which states that any property owned by the city valued at more than $4 per capita, or almost $200,000, needs to be approved by voters prior to sale, Staton said.

The land beneath the Marriott is currently pegged at a market value slightly in excess of $1 million, van Ravensway said.

Because the parking garage is publicly owned, it doesn’t have a market value, and would need to be appraised, he said.

There also will be two millage renewals in support of the East Lansing Public Schools on the ballot.