LANSING — Lansing Mayor Andy Schor decided to do something a little different with this year’s State of the City address.
Instead of the typical speech in front of a crowd, Schor’s 2026 State of the City address was a “Tonight Show” style event — the “Lansing Show” — where the mayor shared brief remarks with invited guests in the Dart Auditorium at Lansing Community College before interviewing several city employees about their departments and the work.
“I was tired of being that talking head,” Schor told the crowd. “And I wanted to have others join me to talk about the many things that are being done in Lansing.”
But before the audience heard from the police chief, fire chief, public works employees and about efforts by Human Relations and Community Services employees to address homelessness, Schor brought out Big Lug, the mascot for the Lansing Lugnuts, to celebrate what will be the minor league team’s 30th year in Lansing.
“We know that every successful city has the amenities to grow and thrive,” Schor said once he was seated at his host desk on stage. “We have great jobs and housing for all incomes, reliable transportation, services like child care.”
During his 2025 speech, Schor shared the first public look at the new Lansing City Hall designs and talked about the developments and construction downtown. He also spoke about the city’s efforts to address gun violence and neighborhood improvement projects, including a focus on fixing sidewalks.
Schor emphasized some of those same topics during the 2026 address and pointed to progress made over the past year, from a decrease in fatal shootings to more expected downtown housing. He also highlighted work in the city’s 311 call center, which he said receives nearly 1,000 calls each week.
“The state of our city is strong,” Schor said as he closed the program. “And we have so much to be excited and hopeful for right now. As I always say, and you know it, Lansing’s time is now. And the best is yet to come.”
Housing continues as key focus for Schor administration
The first guests Schor called on stage talked about housing in the city, which the mayor said has been a “huge priority” for his administration.
“We’ve watched new buildings go up for both multi-family and single-family housing,” he said. “We’ve worked to assist with the rehabilitation of existing housing.”
Rawley Van Fossen, the city’s director of economic development and planning, said housing preservation and new housing were “two critical points” for the city.
The city brought back its home repair grant program and allocated about $900,000 to it so homeowners “can get that critical financing to ensure that home repairs to keep their house safe and accessible are here and available to them,” Van Fossen said.
He also pointed to the former Walter French Junior High School, which reopened last year after renovations for apartments, and the 28-story New Vision Lansing skyscraper downtown that’s under construction as 2025 successes in bringing new housing to the city.
Schor recently highlighted several accomplishments from the past year in the city’s annual report, released earlier in March. He pointed to the more than 130 new housing units and more than $112.7 million in investments that were overseen by the Lansing Economic Development Corporation.
Residential roads could see repairs in 2026
Roads were another topic Schor touched on in his address.
“As I’ve said over and over, we have about $300 million in need right now if we were going to do all of (the city’s needed road work),” he said. “… Of course, what I hear more often than anything is, ‘What about the neighborhood roads?’ So we know that the neighborhood roads have been neglected.”
The state budget passed in 2025 includes new revenue for road work. Andy Kilpatrick, the city’s public service director, said a “significant amount” of the new revenue that will come to the city will be used for neighborhood streets.
The city’s public service department used nearly 702 tons of cold patch for street repairs and responded to 2,114 pothole complaints, according to the 2025 annual report.
‘NOVA’ housing initiative
Among the issues Schor’s administration and the Lansing City Council have been dealing with since last year, homelessness and the city’s “NOVA” housing initiative run through the Human Relations and Community Services department.
City officials chose the name Nova because of its newness and transformative powers.
In January, two city advisory boards unanimously voted an Ingham County parking lot as the best location for a community of pods that would provide both shelter and services to people who are homeless.
Daphine Whitfield, a contract manager in the city’s HRCS department, said that a “robust transitional housing program” is a key goal of the overall project. The Nova housing program will include financial literacy training, mental and physical health services and more.
“It has been found that this type of housing is really what situates a person to be stabilized, maintain their housing and then have a better quality of life,” Whitfield told the crowd.
Contact reporter Matt Mencarini at mjmencarini@lsj.com.
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Schor hosts ‘Lansing Show’ during 2026 State of City address
Reporting by Matt Mencarini, Lansing State Journal / Lansing State Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
