����ӰԺ

Longtime hometown Gentilozzi Real Estate is embarking on one of its most ambitious projects to date — a partial transformation of Michigan’s state capital, Lansing.

The $320 million project encompasses five buildings, some new and others retrofitted in and around the legislature itself, and a neighborhood to the near north.

Teaming with Metro Detroit realtor JFK Investment, it’s called New Vision Lansing. The moniker says it all: “Redefining living and working downtown.”

It’s a visionary project to breathe new life into the city’s core by changing the makeup of the type of buildings that occupy it.

“What we’re seeking to do is to transform the central business district from its reliance on state employees to a place for people to live,” managing partner Paul Gentilozzi said.

The essential change is residential.

“There are a lot of multiple family projects around our CBD but there were few in the middle of it,” he said.

The largest and centerpiece will be Tower on Grand at 28 storeys and 330,000 square feet, then Washington Square at 10 storeys and 65,000 square feet — a retrofit of a 100-year-old building that formerly housed the Michigan Court of Appeals, under construction since March.

The third, diagonally southwest of the Capitol, is a six-storey 125,000-square-foot build, topped with 25,000 square feet of offices. The next is a smaller 26,000 square foot project, which is another retrofit of an old office building directly adjacent to the Michigan House of Representatives with 26 furnished apartments and meeting spaces for legislators to live. The fifth is in Old Town, an arts district half a mile north, and is new construction with seven storeys including parking and 90 apartments.

Announcing the composite project at this time takes advantage of the fact Gentilozzi has owned some of the properties for decades, market studies showing a need for residential occupancy, investment climate and both state and city co-called transformational brownfield incentives.

The developments are also a direct response to the post-COVID work-from-home phenomenon which has left office buildings underutilized. An example is the demolition of a state building where the Tower on Grand will be built, beginning this summer.

“There’s a significant need,” Gentilozzi said. “Our CBD is short over 1,000 apartments. And these projects take years. So, as we saw COVID subsiding and the world going back to some normalcy we’ve been three-and-a-half years in our planning.”

And while “we were a little spoiled” by interest rates during COVID, “I don’t know if we’ll ever see numbers below four again, but having been in this business 56 years I’m not unhappy with interest rates in the five to six per cent range at all.”

Moreover, the Tower on Grand will be attached to a 100-year-old office retail building “and we just leased a new men’s clothing store yesterday. They want to be there because of the tower.”

The buildings will also feature ground floor retail — merchandise, entertainment and eating — in the hope of being a “catalyst” to spark both day and night life.

While traditionally there have been 17,000 workers downtown those people weren’t there at night “because there was no place to live,” Gentilozzi said.

While this might be rather large-scale it’s not particularly new in scope for Gentilozzi, which has a varied portfolio of office, residential and commercial across the state. The company has been the lead developer in the CBD for almost 50 years.

All buildings will be completed “30 months from today,” Gentilozzi said.

There were no challenges with proximity to the state Capitol.

In fact, “the state government has been very very helpful.”

The Capitol Tower building is literally 200 feet from the legislature.