$85 million plan puts shops, hotel near Eastwood

Lansing, Michigan. The Lansing "planners" are at it again. Like we need to add more urban sprawl among dozens and dozens of empty buildings in the city that sit empty and are rotting. There's a huge building on Cedar St that has set empty for over 8 years that I've noticed. It's a Wal-Mart sized and style building surrounded by acres of paved parking lot. But it sits unused by anyone. Did anyone notice it sits on major thoroughfare? Nope, nobody wants that. They want to go after and rape the green areas like that surrounding Eastwood Town Center.
They're having a hard time finding funding for a parking ramp downtown to provide parking for the Accident Fund workers. They had a parking ramp there, but they just had to tear it down. Nothing wrong with it structurally. They just didn't seem to like that one. I don't know, the problem was aesthetics, maybe? Yet, they want to dig up $85 million for this unneeded behemoth that sits near an intersection that is a driver's nightmare. Even now, the Eastwood Town Center (Who gave it that name? It's not the center of town), the location near where they want to build this monstrosity, is inaccessible by anyone who isn't driving a car. Walkers? Cyclists? Motorized wheelchairs? Forget it, you'll get run over. Even if you are driving a car, it's a high-hazard, high accident area.
Instead of building another "mall" designed exclusively for cars, and adding retail space, restaurants, and other spaces that are not needed in a recession period when a large part of the population is losing their jobs and their homes are going into foreclosure, try building something that's really needed. Try focusing on rebuilding Lake Lansing Road and making it usable for everyone.
See this URL for the article:

http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/article/20091021/NEWS01/910210324