East Lansing Community Development Analyst Tim Schmitt said DTN has not yet set a date for the demolition of the property’s Biggby Coffee and the launch of the project’s construction, but the company would postpone it in order to “take into account some of the comments that were made” at the planning commission meeting.
“The reason we’ve kind of slowed down the public hearing and approval process was to consider ... whether or not there are modifications to our plan and application that make any sense for the project that might make the process easier,” DTN Chief Construction Officer Allen Russell said. “If we’re thinking that we may — and I emphasize may — modify that application, it doesn’t make sense to have meetings and discussion on it if it’s possible that it’s going to change. Once we’re clear in our minds that we’ve examined our options and feel like we have the best proposal we can put forward, we’ll continue.”
Colin Cronin, vice president of DTN, said it might take 30 to 60 days to revise and resubmit the plan.
“Ideally, we would’ve liked to start this project this springtime,” he said.
Russell said the potential design changes would address the comments and input received in public hearings and meetings with the city staff.
“With any construction project, you have people concerned about traffic, people concerned about noise, people concerned about height or number of units — those are typical concerns,” he said.
It became apparent to DTN officials involved with the Gateway development that the project could be better executed if they acquired the adjacent property belonging to the original Biggby Coffee shop, Russell said.
He also said DTN approached the owners of the property to inquire if they were interested in becoming equity partners in the project.
The Biggby Coffee owners were willing “to sell their property into the project, and then in return to be relocated in the new project with a drive-through and a few other things like new signage and so forth,” he said.
East Lansing has approved the construction of a number of mixed-use buildings in recent years. Russell said this is the “preferred form” and “just the current thinking” on how development should be executed. He said the Gateway Project would include apartments on the upper floors, retail, an insurance office and, possibly, an exercise facility.
“We’ve been working on this project for two years and we would like to see it move forward into the construction phase,” Russell said. “We just want to make sure we’re presenting the best project we can — one that’s financeable and buildable — and we’ll create the return to investors that drives the ship.”
