A pole barn protest

Walnut neighborhood protests Niowave with a pole barn of their own

Sam Inglot/City Pulse

Monday, March 4 —Nearly nine months after Niowave erected a pole barn in their community, members of the Walnut Neighborhood Organization built their own pole barn in protest and parked it right in front of the company’s headquarters. It’s 14,000 square feet versus 80 square feet. Plus, this pole barn comes with wheels.

Since last July, residents of the organization have been trying to get the company to fix the facade of the pole barn to blend in with the neighborhood. Around 6 a.m. this morning, Dale Schrader, a Walnut neighborhood resident, pulled his truck up in front of the Niowave entrance at 1012 N. Walnut St. with an 8-by-10 foot enclosed trailer that was designed to look like the company’s pole barn around the corner.

On the mini-pole barn, the blue to white facade, the roof and the sign on the trailer make it look much like it’s bigger brother. However, instead of the sign reading: “Niowave — Accelerating your particles,” it reads: “Niowave —Accelerating Neighborhood Decline.” Dollar signs replaced the atom symbol in the company’s logo.

“Some officers of Niowave may have this show up in front of their houses, just like their pole barn suddenly showed up in front of ours,” Schrader said. “The difference is, they only have to look at it for a day and we have to look at it permanently. We’re hoping this will get their attention to propose something other than landscaping.”

Niowave has offered to spend $100,000 in landscaping to obscure the building, but neighbors have said that doesn’t go far enough. They want the facade fixed.

Eight other residents parked their cars in front of Niowave’s building along Walnut Street to protest the pole barn and the Niowave “guest parking” signs on the street.

“Like everything else they do, they’ve commandeered the entire east side of Walnut Street and put up signs with no permission from anyone,” Schrader said. “We’ve been neighborly enough, we’ve honored those spaces — until now. We’re going to exercise our right to park on a public street. It’ll be a little bit of an inconvenience for them, that’s all.”

Schrader said the mini-pole barn would likely be going on a tour around town, starting with the Niowave building. The pole barn may pop up in front of the houses of Bob Johnson, city director of planning and neighborhood development, Terry Grimm, owner of Niowave, Bob Trezise, director of the Lansing Economic Area Partnership, and Jerry Hollister, Niowave’s chief operations officer. He said it would “definitely” be parked outside City Hall on March 11, when the public hearing for Niowave’s $500,000 personal property tax exemption is scheduled.

“If they can buy $5 million in equipment and expect a $500,000 rebate from the city, they can afford to properly fix the facade,” Schrader said.

Beth Grimm, Niowave vice president of finance, and Mark Sinilla, chief financial officer for Niowave, had no comment.

BiddleCityGuy

And, now Niowave has lowered itself to having their employees run interference in the comments section of a weekly alternative newspaper. Priceless. Stay class, Niowave.

CitizenJohn

I don\'t work for Niowave or have any relatives that do- although it may be easier for you to believe that than to consider the point. It\'s okay to be upset about the barn, but direct it to the city planning commission that approved it. Had they told the company the design didn\'t pass muster, Im guessing neither party would be here.

I am so glad to see this. When this story first popped up months ago, I thought the neighbors must be exaggerating. That is, until I actually went to the property. I was familiar with the neighborhood, and this thing is COMPLETELY out of context with its surroundings. Had they placed further back near the middle of the property, MAYBE they could have gotten away with this. But this is literally built out to the street, and is literally built right up to the property line of an adjacent house.\n\nI was happy to see Niowave choose the old school, but if I\'d known they were going to do this, I\'d have offered them another location in a more industrial part of the city. There is NO EXCUSE for how they\'ve handled this.

jwswrites

It\'s unfortunate that things have escalated this far, but Niowave officials have mishandled this situation at nearly every turn. Rather than seeking to build a strong relationship with its residential neighbors, Niowave\'s leaders seem to have buried their heads in the sand. They did not seek out support from neighbors before putting this building up, and failed repeatedly to show up at neighborhood meetings when residents started asking questions about the giant industrial box that sprung up on a former school playground.\n\nNiowave\'s continued silence - including in this story - speaks volumes. That\'s why anti-pole barn signs have sprouted throughout the neighborhood, in the front lawns of residents who aren\'t normally involved in advocacy efforts. This isn\'t an effort of a gadfly rubbed the wrong way - the feeling of distrust toward Niowave runs deep in the Walnut neighborhood. Deeper, I dare say, than anyone at Niowave - and perhaps in City Hall - realizes\n\nBeing landlords in the neighborhood doesn\'t make up for this failure. Neither does being a supporter of other community efforts. Niowave needs to focus on its own neighborhood before it\'s too late. The company may or may not be able to \"fix the facade\" in the way that many neighbors want, but its leadership has sent the message that they simply don\'t care at all about the neighborhood. They built what they wanted to on their own property, and that\'s just tough for the neighborhood. And now they want a sizeable tax break as a reward.\n\nI wanted to see Niowave succeed when the new company bought the old Walnut elementary, a short time after I bought my home a block away. (The school was Niowave\'s second choice, by the way, when several shuttered Lansing school buildings went up for sale. The first choice was the old Verlinden elementary building which borders the vacant former GM industrial complex - but Lansing economic development officials steered Niowave to the quaint Walnut neighborhood school when It was outbid.)\n\nI still want to see Niowave succeed, but I can\'t be a cheerleader for this company any more, and I certainly can\'t support any public assistance for this company when it treats its own neighbors with such disrespect.

I have seen this story resurface over and over. \n\nTo me, it seems the neighbors are very misguided in their efforts. If they have a problem with the zoning and site plan use, shouldn\'t they take it up with the city? Niowave did what any other entity, private or public is required to do and submitted paperwork, and had a plan approved by the city that has regulations and guidelines to approve such projects. \n\nAnd now the neighbors are mad at them? Shouldn\'t they be mad at the city instead? And now they have sunken to the level of harassing the company and its employees? Disappointing and misguided to say the least. Why would Niowave want to work with them now, after being treated this way?\n\nIf you don\'t like something that has happened, at least be a good example of how to resolve it. \nWere any zoning ordinances or city regulations overlooked by Niowave? None have been found or reported that I have seen in the news. If so, please tell us!\n\nNiowave took a vacant school and declining neighborhood and instilled life into it! Didn\'t they buy and refurbish a number of homes there, investing in the neighborhood? Didn\'t Niowave offer to spend $100,000 to try to fix a problem that they didn\'t have to fix since they followed all the rules?\n\nThe neighbors better be careful or they may really see what happens to property values if Niowave leaves to do business elsewhere- leaving an empty school, a number of houses for sale and a vacant pole barn. \n

cliff

I have seen the pole barn. It is ugly and cheap looking. They never would have put up such a thing in the suburbs, but clearly felt that it was ok in the city. They refused to send anyone from the company to any of the neighborhood meetings. Just because they were allowed to do something substandard \ndoes not mean that they were justified in doing so. The neighbors who are protesting are allowed to do so, but you do not feel it justifies what they are doing. Your critique of them is no \ndifferent than what they are doing.

dave

How come they don\'t want to talk about the good things Niowave has done for walnut area? They bought a condemned building that was left to rot (the school it self)? They rescued over a dozen homes in the walnut area that where considered non livable, they now own and rent to the public. They worked with local police and allowed them to use the building to stake out drug dealers across the road and caught them. They do there best to use and buy local (Lansing). They donated over 400 items to the homeless in 2012. They supply over 30 jobs for the Lansing area and growing. they are willing to work with the neighborhood but the neighborhood is not willing to work with them. People now days, no wonder why people don\'t want to stay in Lansing.

A pole barn protest

Walnut neighborhood protests Niowave with a pole barn of their own

Also in News:

categories