[msb-alumni] Re: Demolition Underway at Former Michigan School for the Blind

From: "Gary Wood" <K8HLX@xxxxxxx>
To: <msb-alumni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 6 Apr 2014 02:47:26 -0500

BlankWell since I go to movies at Celebration, maybe they could modernize the 
auditorium, and show all audio described movies there, and maybe nothing but.  
Ed Rogers was thinking of making a charter school for the blind, K12.  Another 
thing I heard:  a former student of MSB said that a Russian said he wondered 
why they're closing a good school like that one; but I guess maybe we can only 
dream.  
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Steve 
  To: msb-alumni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
  Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2014 9:02 PM
  Subject: [msb-alumni] Demolition Underway at Former Michigan School for the 
Blind

  Well, if there isn't enough downer news on this list lately.  Here's more...

  Demolition underway on campus of Lansing's former Michigan School for the 
Blind . LANSING - Demolition has begun on what was once a dining hall at the 
Michigan School for the Blind. A maintenance building will come next and then 
the "cottages," squat brick buildings that once served as dormitories. The 
27,000-square-foot auditorium built in the 1950s is also on the list, though 
its destruction might still be averted. Tom Edmiston, senior vice president for 
Great Lakes Capital Fund, a nonprofit that owns the more elegant structures on 
the site, described the work as "demolition and clearance, kind of making the 
campus available for redevelopment. Redevelopment has been slow in coming. The 
Lansing campus of the School for the Blind closed in the fall of 1995 and the 
few remaining students were moved to Flint. Much of the campus has been idle 
since. The Ingham County Land Bank, which owns much of the campus, renovated 
the historic 6,000-square-foot superintendent's house in 2009. It's now 
oc'cup'ied by Rizzi Designs. The former library became the Greater Lansing 
Housing Coalition's Neighborhood Empowerment Center in 2010. But the 
century-old administration building and former high school building have lain 
fallow. Edmiston said Great Lakes Capital does have a purchase agreement on the 
administration building, rechristened The Abigail, from a developer who wants 
to use it for affordable housing. The project is contingent on assistance from 
the state. The state is funding the demolition work though a $1.8 million 
blight removal grant. The grant was approved last year, but "it's taken this 
long to get all the necessary pieces of paper together that the state needed 
before they would release funds," Edmiston said. There is still time, not much 
though, to save the auditorium. "If we got any serious offers for the 
auditorium as is, then we wouldn't proceed with the demolition," Edmiston said. 
But the window is probably no longer than six weeks. "Given fact that we 
haven't heard anything for several years now about interest in the auditorium, 
it's hard to imagine that someone would step forward at this point," Edmiston 
said.

  Tum podem extulit horridulum

  Steve
  Lansing, Pure MI

  P.S.  Look up the Latin translation of that signature on Google, it really 
sums up things right now, lol.

References:
- [msb-alumni] Demolition Underway at Former Michigan School for the Blind
  - From: Steve

[msb-alumni] Re: Demolition Underway at Former Michigan School for the Blind

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