LANSING — Will state workers ever return en masse to downtown state offices? And if not, or regardless, is Mayor Andy Schor’s push for hundreds more apartments downtown the right strategy to buoy Lansing’s downtown?
Those two questions are central to a five-candidate mayor’s race as Schor seeks a third term.
Schor, 50, said he would like to see more state workers downtown, but he also hasn’t publicly pushed for Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to alter or abandon the state’s work from home policy that sent thousands of state workers to their homes in 2020.
Instead, about 600 new apartments have been built in and around downtown in the past several years, with more than 800 planned.
“My pitch from the beginning is this helps the city’s bottom line, by new residents paying property and income taxes,” Schor said. “It helps the city with revenues.”
Consultant Brett Brockschmidt — who along with City Council member Jeffrey Brown, David Ellis and Kelsea Hector are challenging Schor in the August primary — said Schor’s plan hinges on a big if. Is Lansing perceived as a safe enough city to draw young professionals and others into new downtown apartments?
“I think it could work,” Brockschmidt said. “It may be a risky gamble because the new skyscraper is in an area where people perceive a problem with crime.
“My No. 1 issue is bringing on more cops and I’ll ask the police chief to focus patrols in the new areas in downtown. It could work as long as people perceive it as safe and as long as we don’t give developers huge and lengthy tax breaks.”
Brockschmidt, 63, was referring to the residential developments under construction downtown. Those include the $315 million New Vision Lansing project that will include four buildings across the downtown, including a 28-story high-rise on Grand Avenue, and a fifth building in Old Town; two buildings now going up from the Lansing Housing Commission that will include more than 100 new residential units along Grand Avenue, and developer Gary Granger’s 76-unit, five-story building being built down the street from the New Vision high-rise. New Vision alone will add more than 560 apartments as well as commercial space to the city, most of it downtown.
Ellis, a 26-year-old Lansing native who frequently speaks at City Council meetings and works at Home Depot, said he doesn’t care if downtown state government workers come back.
“If we bring them back, that’s great and that will help, but regardless, we need to imagine they are not there at all,” he said. “We need to focus on the people who live here and infill development and not just the 9-5 crowd. If they’re not coming back, we need to tell the state government they are not to sit on our land for all time. These parking lots are eating up enormous amounts of downtown land and should be turned over to private development or to the city to do something.”
Hector, a 33-year-old nonprofit consultant and former K-12 educator, said developers are welcome to revitalize the city but Lansing needs to be careful its developments don’t spill over into gentrification.
“It’s beautiful we’re getting developers to come in and revitalize parts of our city, but we have to be careful with gentrification where development is so ongoing that people get pushed out of communities,” Hector said.
Brown, 41, declined an interview for this story.
Targeting young professionals
Granger made clear earlier this year his newest Lansing development is targeted at young professionals.
“We should offer high quality jobs, we should offer young people the opportunity of getting to their dreams,” Granger said in June while announcing plans to tear down the former Walter Neller building at 122 S. Grand Ave. so he can build a five-story residential building in the shadows of New Vision’s skyscraper. “We should offer young people the opportunity of having a dream and working hard for it in their own backyard.”
Granger did not disclose the cost of the project or proposed rents, but he hopes to have it open before New Vision finishes its 28-story high-rise down the street.
High rents downtown have been an issue, and rents across the region and the state have risen sharply in recent years.
Schor acknowledged penthouses at the under-construction Tower on Grand high-rise would likely be expensive but pointed to more affordable developments, including ones based on income. The Lansing Housing Commission’s two developments going up on Grand Avenue are expected to include affordable apartments.
He said Lansing continues to have a housing weakness: Few options for people who need four bedrooms or more, which pushes large families to other communities.
Downtown development
The city has faced serious revenue losses since state workers began operating remotely. About 49% of Michigan’s 47,000 state employees were working remotely in 2022. Some continue to do so, and a lunchtime stroll along Washington Square isn’t what it once was. Whitmer’s administration has been reluctant to release updated numbers.
Schor said he would like see state workers come back to downtown.
“I’d love to see (state workers in Lansing) two to three days a week,” he said. “The businesses would like to see it downtown and that’s the hope but what are we doing? Housing is the answer.”
Schor said the state of Michigan had an obligation to Lansing after state workers in large numbers left the city when the pandemic began, similar to when major employers left other towns like Greenville and Saginaw. A pair of $40 million grants from the state – one for New Vision Lansing and the other for a new city hall – were part of fulfilling that obligation.
Brockschmidt said he has taken some pushback for advocating that state workers return to downtown.
“I do believe the state should ask the state employees to come back,” he said. “On one hand, I’d like to see state workers back but they’re not really wanting to come back so we need to make it more palatable.”
He said income tax advantages and parking fee reductions could help encourage more state workers to come back downtown for work.
Ellis said the city’s strategy of developing new apartments is solid but not enough.
“I will fight anyone on this: Dense development is key to economic success because it pays much, much more in taxes while overall using vastly less infrastructure than other kinds of development.”
Ellis said skyscrapers are dense but shouldn’t be the only solution because density also means “six-plex” housing units, which can be six apartments on a footprint similar to a single-family home.
“Dense does not have to mean giant apartments,” he said. “Most developments shouldn’t exceed four stories. Above that is more difficult to maintain, so we need to focus on infill and densifying but we don’t need to do it with developers and big photo ops. We need to allow someone to convert a single-family home to a duplex or rent out their lower floor or infill an empty lot. We need to be much, much more all-encompassing.”
Ellis said Lansing needs to recognize itself as an urban city, and lean into urban things like buses, density and walkable neighborhoods rather than compete as a suburb against other suburbs.
“It seems like city government has this idea that we are a city but we’d be better off if we operate in a suburban mindset where everyone drives everywhere,” he said, “but emphasizing transit instead could bring people, jobs and futures into Lansing.”
Hector said Lansing can have the best of both worlds: Development and working with neighborhoods so current residents aren’t left behind by using the city’s leverage to make sure developers don’t forget about the most vulnerable people.
Hector said she wants to pursue a “yes, and” approach to state workers. She enjoys remote flexibility in her job and enforcing downtown work could mean state workers quit for better jobs elsewhere.
She wants state workers to have the choice and for Lansing to look at what similar cities have done to bolster their downtowns and neighborhoods.
“When I go to a city for a whole weekend, it’s not just for one thing, they’ve got to draw me in,” Hector said.
“I think that what we are seeing right now is a push toward gentrification,” Hector said. “If we don’t bring the people who are here with us along, there won’t be a future for them because there are so many gaps in the community: Healthy food in certain neighborhoods, housing for some of our neighborhoods and resources.”
The top two vote getters in the Aug. 5 primary election will advance to the Nov. 4 general election.
Mail-in ballots — 22,000 of them — have been mailed out to Lansing voters. There are three early voting dates: July 30, Aug. 2 and Aug. 3, at the city’s Reo Elections Office, 1221 Reo Road.
Contact Mike Ellis at 517-267-0415 or mellis@lsj.com.
Meet the Lansing mayoral candidates:
Brett Brockschmidt
Age: 63
Professional background: He is a semi-retired financial administrator whose work with big budgets gives him experience in finding financial solutions, he said.
Political background: None. He said being a small landlord in Lansing gives him a front-row seat for property tax and crime issues.
Quote: He said he intends “to hire the firemen and policemen that Andy Schor has said he was going to but he doesn’t intend to because of that line item in his budget called vacancy factor and I’m going to bring more transparency to the rest of the budget.”
Jeffrey Brown
Age: 41
Professional background: Brown declined an interview regarding his candidacy. His city council biography says he has worked in leadership, program development and management and has a doctorate in ministry degree from Kingdom University International Bible College. Brown filed for personal bankruptcy in 2015, court records show.
Political background: He was on the executive committee of Ingham County Community Health Centers board and is a Ward 4 city councilman, a seat he won in the 2021 election.
Quote: Brown declined to be interviewed.
David Ellis
Age: 26
Professional background: He is a retail worker and transit activist.
Political background: Pedestrian and bicycling issues led to his interest in broader city government, and he regularly speaks at Lansing City Council meetings.
Quote: “I’m the candidate with the best understanding of what it takes to be a city, the economics and politics behind that. And I have the drive to make things happen that need to happen to improve the city and its roots.”
Kelsea Hector
Age: 33
Professional background: Hector is a former teacher, is the executive director of Lansing’s Punks with Lunch and is a consultant for the Tenant Resource Center.
Political background: None. She said her work in nonprofits and community activism will help her lead, driven with the stories of people who need help.
Quote: “I think that what we are seeing right now is a push toward gentrification. If we don’t bring the people who are here now with us, there won’t be a future because we have so many gaps in our community.”
Andy Schor
Age: 50
Professional background: He worked for Michigan politicians, including Gary Peters, Paul Condino and Gov. Jennifer Granholm, before being elected to the Ingham County Board of Commissioners where he spent a decade on the board.
Political background: Schor served as an Ingham County commissioner, Democratic state representative and has served two terms as Lansing’s mayor.
Quote: “People should take a look at things I’ve done and the things we want to do and make a decision if we want to continue to be focused on economic development, investments, public safety and everything we can do with infrastructure.”
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Can downtown apartments offset loss of state workers? Lansing mayor candidates weigh in
Reporting by Mike Ellis, Lansing State Journal / Lansing State Journal
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