It took a long time for the city of Lansing to get an obstinate raft of ducks in a row and find a way to move City Hall from its leaky, rusting, mid-20th-century home to a new, smaller, more efficient building a few blocks away.
Now the ducks are lined up and it’s happening much faster.
City workers are digitizing thousands of documents and sending them into the cloud, consigning tons of metal file cabinets to the dustbin of history. Cranes will rumble into place next month to begin work on a new, three-story City Hall on City Lot 1 at 425 S. Grand Ave., on the northeast corner of Grand and Lenawee Street. The new City Hall is expected to be finished by mid- to late 2026.
The plastic-covered elevator shaft of a new, $175 million public safety complex at 2500 S. Washington Ave. that will house police headquarters, 54A District Court and a short-term lockup is already poking into the air.
When those facilities are completed, Chicago developer John Paul Beitler will swoop into the present City Hall and convert it into a glassy, updated, mid-century-modern hotel with a view of the state Capitol. The City Council approved the $2.78 million sale to Beitler last summer.
Those lined-up ducks are raring to go, and so is Mayor Andy Schor.
But in the push to get the project over the finish line — and to spend a $40 million appropriation from the state Legislature earmarked for a new City Hall while it’s still in the city’s pocket — the mayor and his staff dealt with the crucial question of what the building will look like as an internal matter.
Last month, after saying “yes” to the first design presented to the city by a Royal Oak-based architecture firm that will work with developer Boji Group, the city released images of the new, three-story, 75,000-square-foot City Hall to the public.
It will be the city’s third City Hall since the first one was erected in 1897.
The design is final, subject only to “tweaks,” according to Schor and Deputy Mayor Christopher Mumby.
A major piece of public architecture says a lot about the surrounding community and the times in which it was built. Lansing’s 1897 Gilded Age City Hall (on the cover in front of the current City Hall) looked as solid as a castle, with turrets, towers and heavy stone arches. Its successor, built in 1958, went in the opposite direction, with a sleek, modern slab of glass and steel that was at the cutting edge at the time.
The first City Hall rooted a young city in the past, sending a message of solidity, longevity and security. The second one looked to the future. What does the third one say about Michigan’s capital city?
MSU design instructor Jessica Flores wonders about that.
The current City Hall is registered in the National Register of Historic Places, and its 1897 predecessor surely would be, if it was still around.
“What we build next — is it going to be worthy of going on the National Register in 50 years?” Flores asked.
What is more, should it be? And how would we know?
The first and second city halls reflected the times in which they were built. The same is true of the current design, albeit in ways that may be invisible to us now.
Bold, brave gestures toward the future, architectural or otherwise, don’t seem to be the order of the day.
“Our priorities were functionality and cost, and then to make the nicest looking building within the cost limitations,” Mumby said.
‘Missed opportunity’
When Jessica Flores saw the new City Hall design, she was underwhelmed.
“Mehhh,” she said.
After a pause, she elaborated.
“It leaves a little to be desired,” she said. “Right now, it looks like Anywhere, America.”
An architectural historian, Flores teaches in the history curriculum in the Interior Design Program in the School of Planning, Design and Construction at MSU. She is also the founder of Preservation Forward and helps a range of public and private clients redevelop historic buildings.
“The built environment is a reflection of the people who live there,” Flores said. “This is the capital city of Michigan. Can we get this right?”
The city halls of America vary wildly in style, material and scale, from stately classical to Queen Anne to Brutalist to Southwest adobe-style, befitting the nation’s sprawling diversity.
In Michigan alone, city halls range from Marquette’s blushing Lake Superior sandstone to Manistee’s Federalist austerity to Bay City’s Richardsonian Romanesque pile, built in 1897, the same year Lansing’s first City Hall was built, topped by a 200-foot-tall bell tower and still in operation.
In the post-modern era, cities are building new halls that reflect their distinctive communities.
The city of Clearwater, Florida, broke ground last November on a 42,000-square-foot, two-story city hall expected to cost $31.6 million, designed with a swooping, wave-like façade by the award-winning Wannemacher Jensen architectural firm.
A 118,000-square-foot city hall in Austin, Texas, with boldly stacked terraces of concrete, copper, glass and steel and an estimated 100-year service life was completed for $50 million in 2004.
Flores said she’d like to see more materials and motifs associated specifically with Michigan and Lansing.
She praised MSU’s innovative STEM building, completed in 2021, which has won design awards for its large-scale use of mass timber, or super-strong processed wood.
“I hope they bring innovation and creativity to this project,” Flores said. “Can we be thoughtful about it? Can we pull from the local group of architects, designers, people who call Lansing their home? Can we solicit input from community about what our new City Hall is going to look like?”
The short answers to her last two questions, according to the mayor, are “no” and “no.”
The City Hall drawings are marked “conceptual,” which means, in Schor’s words, “This is what we plan to build.”
“We did not do a massive public process asking all architects and asking all people what they want to see on the outside,” Schor said. “We did not do that. We gave thoughts to the architect, asked them to come up with something, and when they brought this to us, we said, ‘It’s within budget, looks good, fits the neighborhood, let’s get it done.’”
The design firm responsible for the plans, Royal Oak-based Krieger Klatt, was already working with the Boji Group on the planned conversion of the former Masonic Temple to a new City Hall. When that plan fell through, owing to City Council opposition, Schor opted to build the new facility on city-owned land, eliminating the need to get Council’s purchase approval.
“I wanted to rehab a historic building and keep it,” Schor said. “I didn’t get my way. It happens. Second best: Take an old parking lot and fill it. Urban infill.”
“It’s a parking lot, and that’s a lot better than demolishing a lot of historic buildings to build the new one,” Flores said.
As the city’s chosen developer for the project, Boji retained Krieger Klatt. The two companies had already worked together on the design and construction of a new city hall in Royal Oak.
“We picked someone to do a new City Hall, and we stuck with who we picked, even though the location changed,” Mumby said.
Schor said the city gave no specific guidelines to the designer, aside from the $40 million budget and a list of departments and services to include.
“We said, ‘Present us with some ideas,’” Schor said. “There were a few concepts, just discussion. It wasn’t like, ‘Here are six ones and pick out the one you like best.’ This is what they provided us, and we didn’t reject it.”
Like a running back spotting a rare patch of daylight, Schor is eager to push the project to the end zone while he can.
“If we want to get this thing going, we only have a certain amount of time to use the money from the state,” he said. “As we spend money, we draw down off the state grant and reimburse the developer.”
He said the deadline is “two to three years,” but that’s not his only concern.
“We have an agreement, but the Legislature can try and claw it back,” Schor said. “We’d rather spend it before they can say, ‘Oh my God, because of Donald Trump, because of a recession, because of terrorism, whatever it is, we’re going to take it back.’”
He stressed the need to keep the building within budget.
“Would I love for this to be a beautiful, magical-kingdom castle? I would love that,” Schor said. “But the most important part is functionality on the inside.”
“If this is the final design, then it’s a missed opportunity,” Flores said.
‘Good job’
Architect Dan Bollman was kinder than Flores to the new city hall designs, and even found a hint of regional flavor.
Bollman is a principal at east arbor architecture, an award-winning studio based in East Lansing known for historic and contextually sensitive projects, including the Mason Public Library and Michigan Municipal League Pattern Book Homes.
He compared the solidity and simplicity of the design to that of a “school from the 1950s.”
“It does speak to a certain amount of austerity that is considered appropriate for public buildings,” he said. “We’re not necessarily in an era when we’re going to build a Queen Anne building.”
He credited the designers for resisting the urge to crowd “10 different materials” into the design and sticking with brick, metal panels and cream-colored mortar.
“The formality of the entrance is very obvious, unlike the 1958 building,” Bollman said. “You know right away where the front door is.”
He liked the building’s “massing,” or its arrangement of forms and shapes, and noted that it uses subtle techniques such as varying the brickwork pattern, setting off the entranceway and raising it slightly above the roofline.
“That helps to break up the scale of a very large building,” he said. “It’s not just blocks. Good job.”
He even found evidence of regionalism in the metal awning over the entrance. “It’s a place for you to get out of the Michigan weather,” he said.
Bollman’s colleague at east arbor architecture, Amanda Harrell-Seyburn, sees a hint of collegiate architecture in the new design. Harrell-Seyburn is a specialist in urban design, architecture and historic preservation, an associate at east arbor and a former faculty member at University of Detroit Mercy.
“The community favors a collegiate feeling, red brick with the white layers,” she said. “People really love masonry.”
Mumby said the brick and mortar are there, not just to hold the building up, but to send a message.
“That kind of banding between the floors is fairly common in government buildings,” Mumby said. “We want it to say, ‘This is a government building. This is City Hall.’”
The no-nonsense design didn’t faze Harrell-Seyburn.
“I don’t think it’s surprising, given the climate of today,” she said. “I think people want buildings that convey a sense of competence.”
As an avid student of urban design, Harrell-Seyburn is more enthusiastic in the placement and setting of the new City Hall than the appearance of the building itself.
It’s a point Schor likes to to stress. He sees City Hall not as a single, standalone project, but as part of a nascent complex of city buildings with the potential to generate energy and traffic that will bring the southern edge of downtown to life.
The new City Hall will go about a block from a planned music and arts venue, The Ovation, set to break ground this spring and scheduled for completion in late 2026.
Schor remarked that The Ovation, with its eye-catching wood and glass design, will satisfy those who are looking for architectural flair.
Next door to the new City Hall, on the 500 block of South Washington, a former Greyhound bus station is slated for redevelopment as offices and other uses by the Capital Area Transportation Authority.
Hundreds of new housing units are planned to be built within a block or two, including a towering residential complex on Grand Avenue.
“A City Hall is always a major part of the urban design of a place,” Harrell-Seyburn said. “I’m excited about the connection between City Hall, the intermodal station, the old bus station and Washington Square itself. That end of downtown has struggled along over the years. If we have several civic uses at that end, things will fill in in between. I want people to come down to City Hall, park their cars and then walk around.”
‘A definite paring down’
This is a tale with three chapters, but the third has yet to be written.
The 1897 City Hall only looked like it would last forever. Instead, it was the one that got away.
“It was a misstep to demo that,” Flores said. “Not that I don’t enjoy the 1958 Kenneth Black design, but when I think of longevity, I think of our first City Hall.”
Longevity was not its destiny. The castle was swept aside, not by natural forces, but by 20th century urban growth and the global winds of the International Style.
“Usually, if communities no longer have their 19th-century city halls, it’s because they grew, and Richardsonian Romanesque buildings are difficult to add on to,” Harrell-Seyburn said.
Today, the only part left for the public to see is the bell, which now hangs from a windswept dune at the edge of Lake Huron, an outdoor exhibit at the Presque Isle lighthouse. (An attached plaque says it weighs 3,425 pounds, “60% heavier than the Liberty Bell.”)
A happier fate awaits the second, present-day City Hall, destined to become a sleek boutique hotel, restaurant and retail complex that leans heavily into the “Mad Men” modernism of Kenneth Black’s design.
Susan Bandes, an art historian at MSU and expert on mid-century modern architecture, championed saving the 1958 City Hall in many writings and talks, including an August 2017 City Pulse column.
“Then-Mayor Ralph W. Crego wanted to project an image of the future, of the forward-thinking city government,” Bandes wrote.
“It’s a great representation of the international style in architecture, and we’re fortunate to have that example,” Flores said. (She still likes the castle more, though.)
Former Lansing Mayor David Hollister was a big supporter of the plan to sell, even though his name is on the building.
“The value of that building as a high-end, remodeled hotel, convention center, far exceeds what a patched-up City Hall would be,” Hollister said in a 2018 interview.
Chicago developer and MSU grad John Paul Beitler is a big fan of the building and plans to make it a “revenue generator” for the local economy.
Bollman is delighted. “Kudos to Mayor Schor for saving a historic landmark,” he said.
“I can’t take credit for that,” Schor said. “It was my predecessor. Virg (Bernero) chose this among three proposals he got at the time, and I agreed 100%. These are the historical pieces of our city, and if we can repurpose them for use, that’s what I want to do. If someone is willing to spend the money and take that on, I’m all in.”
History is a roll of the dice. The 1897 castle, for all its stone-pile stability, barely made it to the middle of the 20th century, but its glassy successor will survive well into the 21st.
“Each of the first two city halls are both very much of their era,” Harrell-Seyburn said.
And the third? Despite all appearances, Lansing’s third City Hall, even if the current design is not changed, may speak as clearly of its times as the first two.
“When it comes to anything that is government related, there has been a definite paring down of architecture,” Harrell-Seyburn said. “What I’ve seen in the last 40 years is a movement away from any kind of celebratory architecture toward the most inexpensive possible.”
Post offices, once housed in grand marble temples like Lansing’s downtown post office, are now shoehorned into strip malls or office complexes. Even the Board of Water & Light’s humble pumphouses, scattered in all four corners of town, were built with a design flair unthinkable in public works today.
“It’s a very different aesthetic,” Harell-Seyburn said. “There’s a fear of spending too much money and the blowback that would come from that.”
“Maybe the opulence of the Richardsonian Romanesque era is gone,” Bollman said. “It’s not an inappropriate thing to consider — keeping our eye on the ball and making sure we’re spending our taxpayer dollars in an appropriate way.”
Bollman couldn’t say for sure what style the new City Hall design belongs to, but he speculated that the dominance of brick masonry (and the generous awning) nudge it toward a style called “critical regionalism.”
Critical regionalism treads the ridge between the faceless, glass-and-steel conformism of the International Style and the whimsical curlicues of Post-Modernism.
But is it a style that will be recognizable in 50 years, or just a way for architects to avoid angering people and stay relevant in a changing cultural climate?
Those dice haven’t been thrown yet.
“Back in 1897, they got a building that was of the era, and the same can be said of the 1958 one,” Bollman said. “Maybe someday we’ll consider the new building to be of its era. Time will tell. We won’t really know whether the building is of its era until we’ve passed this era.”
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