East Lansing's Carriage Hills neighborhoods become force for change
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Posted: June 19, 2014
By: Lansing State Journal
Carriage Hills Shopping Center focus of effort
MERIDIAN TWP. — If you build it, will they come?
While tenants aren’t yet lining up to fill the vacant spaces at the Carriage Hills Shopping Center, residents who have been working to revitalize the plaza at Lake Lansing and Hagadorn roads believe they’re headed in the right direction.
An effort last year which successfully stopped a plasma center from going into part of a former L & L store brought residents together, who then realized they could be a force for change.
Armed with $7,500 in fundraising and grants and deeply concerned about the empty storefronts in the once-thriving plaza, residents like William Anderson have helped gather ideas for what the plaza could look like.
The funds bankrolled a project with Michigan State University landscape architecture students, which culminated in a so-called “charrette”, or public meeting, in early May. Students had already presented their projects to residents in late April.
Anderson said the meeting included representatives from five different partners – property owner DTN, the Meridian Economic Development Corp., township board members, MSU’s School of Planning, Design and Construction and interested neighbors.
Participants were worked at four separate tables, where they were each given three or four of the final project designs to review.
Each contained a student’s view of how best to remake the shopping center.
They were also each given two tasks, the first of which was choosing features from the plans they’d reviewed that they wanted to see in the final redesign.
Anderson said among choices receiving high marks were gathering spaces, green spaces, mixed-use developments and community gardens – in other words, features to “make (the space) more attractive and keep people there.”
As for the kinds of businesses people would like to see in the plaza, it’s little surprise that a grocery store got top marks. Also frequently mentioned were a coffee shop, a bakery, a bookstore and a hair salon or barber shop.
What’s next? That’s when the “hard work” begins, Anderson said. That includes working with the multiple property owners at the plaza.
“We will work on what's possible and what's reasonable,” he said.
Attracting and retaining a grocery will be a high priority. “That was a clear message,” Anderson said.
Besides being a draw to shoppers, a grocery store would be a “magnet” to other prospective tenants.
The level of participation from nearby residents has been encouraging to Anderson and others.
“I have been thrilled by the high level of involvement by Carriage Hills neighborhoods. We’ve had no trouble getting people to help out,” he said.
“People are very encouraged by the ideas. Now the hard work starts.”
