When we wrote about last year’s “Eyesore of the Year” — SkyVue Apartments near Frandor — we threw some shade on big developments like The Hub that are changing downtown East Lansing from the quaint, two-story college town of old into a towering metropolis. Perhaps we were a bit hasty. Now that these projects are finished or close to completion, the skyline has an exciting visual appeal, and the “instant city” that is taking shape makes a convincing, coherent case for vertical urban density.
The sprawling wasteland north of MSU is another matter. Architects have begun to buzz about, of all places, Chandler Crossing, the vast matrix of apartment houses north of MSU. In the parking lot of a strip mall stands what may be the most misguided post-post-modernist building yet to appear in greater Lansing. NoCa Lofts (for North of Campus) consists of two very large blocks of “luxury” student apartments, sliced into segments by narrow green openings resembling vertical, ground-to-roof air ducts. The mega-ducts appear to draw prospective tenants directly out of the air, like HVAC intakes, thus eliminating the need for conventional doorways. The blocks end in massive blank walls of corrugated metal with absurdly tiny windows. There is deviltry in the details as well. There must have been two competing designs for the decorative balcony railings, so they simply superimposed them over each other.
Someone must have thought it would be welcome to offer some colorful relief from the surrounding blight of Chandler Crossing, which is best described as a vast matrix of identical grey and white condos that the developers apparently made sand castle style, by pressing a 3-story-high plastic mold into a post-apocalyptic beach made of fly ash and cigarette butts. The lesson here is an oft-repeated one: be careful what you wish for.
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ExWestsider
I take exception to City Pulse's selection of the NOCA Lofts in Bath Township's 425 area as Eyesore of the Year. As is obvious from the ground-swell of support for The Blue Loop earlier this year, many Bath Township residents know avant-garde art when they see it. When the Bath Township Board approved the NOCA project and building design, the lack of public reaction showed the community was completely overcome by the "shock of the new" development.
The architectural style of NOCA Lofts is not so much post-post-modern as Lawrence Cosentino termed it, but better described as "Lego Chic" (a style invented by a ten year old using broken bits of a Lego set) which is seen around Lansing in other structures like 2018's Eyesore of the Year SkyVue Apartments. The blue, gray, and bare cement of its facades drawfrom the palette used in the Gillespie Group's buildings as does NOCA's stunning non-Spartan shade of green.
I can't wait to see the Red Cedar project's style.
Tom Hardenbergh
Bath Township
Monday, December 30, 2019 Report this