LANSING — Twenty years after its founding, the Allen Neighborhood Center is planning a major rebuild.
A $10 million project — called Allen Place — will include 29 units of mixed-income housing, as well as commercial space at the center’s current site at 1611 E. Kalamazoo St. in Lansing.
“We wanted to create a comprehensive community services center that would offer not just the array of health, food and other programming we already offer but would also offer housing,” Director Joan Nelson said.
The 36,000-square-foot redevelopment project will include 15,000 square feet of commercial space as well as 20,000 square feet of residential.
The Allen Neighborhood Center was founded in 1999. Among other things, the nonprofit organization hosts a year-round farmers market and manages the Hunter Park GardenHouse. The center also offers entrepreneurs kitchen space through its accelerator and incubator kitchen programs.
Nelson said she envisions the development having a ripple effect in the rest of the Kalamazoo Street corridor.
“We knew doing something really significant would likely catalyze improvements and further development in the commercial nodes up and down Kalamazoo,” she said.
Nelson said there won’t be any breaks in programming at the center because of construction, which is planned to start later this year.
The “age-friendly” project will include 29 apartment units. The units will be mixed-income, and Nelson said she expects a mix of people to take up space in the new development. She said she already has an informal waiting list of people in the area who have expressed interest in living there.
Jennifer Grau, a longtime eastside resident and volunteer at the center, said the project will allow longtime community members to remain on the east side longer. Many older residents can’t stay in their current homes because of stairs or other demands related to home ownership.
“Being able to have affordable housing that’s age friendly is huge,” she said. “It allows people to stay in the community.”
‘A pipeline’
Nelson said work on the project should start this fall and wrap by the end of next year. The only remaining business on the block, a dance studio called Happendance Lansing, will remain in the redevelopment, she said.
The redevelopment project will coincide with the program’s expansion of its Veggie Box program, which is a multi-farm community-supported agriculture program. The neighborhood center recently received a nearly $80,000 grant from the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development as well as a $42,500 grant from the Community Foundation to help build and outfit a new wash-pack kitchen.
The Allen Place project will also include Allen Neighborhood Center’s new accelerator kitchen. The program is a bulked up version of the community center’s incubator kitchen program, which started in 2014.
The accelerator kitchen’s purpose is to give chefs and cooks who are just starting out access to kitchen and prep space for much less than it would cost if they were going it alone.
The renovated kitchen and retail space at the center will hold five graduates of the incubator kitchen program. The graduates will have a small shared counter where patrons can order as well as a handful of tables and chairs.
The Michigan Good Food Fund and the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development both awarded the neighborhood center grants to help start the program.
The neighborhood center is also working with local partners to explore the possibility of creating a culinary school for high school students, Nelson said.
“We are creating a pipeline of small-scale food-processing infrastructure on the block,” she said.
‘A hub for services’
About a year ago, the center was able to purchase the entire building thanks to a large private donation, Nelson said. The center is partnering with Cinnaire Solutions, a nonprofit real estate developer, for the project.
On Monday, the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy announced they were awarding the center a $850,000 grant for environmental clean up on the site, which was previously home to a gas station, dry cleaners and small engine repair operation.
The grant will pay for removing contaminated soil and installing barriers and a ventilation system to deal with harmful vapors, state officials said in a news release. It also will cover demolition costs.
In the release, Lansing Mayor Andy Schor said the redevelopment will bring “a tremendous benefit for the eastside and all of Lansing.”
The Allen Place project could be a model for the state of Michigan because of the amount of partners involved, said James Dow, a development specialist for Cinnaire Solutions.
The project will also help fill a gap in commercial space on the Kalamazoo corridor, he said.
“This project is going to be a community hub for services for Lansing’s east side,” Dow said.
Grau said the project is a reflection of the neighborhood center’s dedication to the East side. She’s worked with the Allen Neighborhood Center since it opened and said she’s been amazed at it’s commitment to being a grassroots, community-driven development.
“I hope it’s going to model a type of development we’ll see more of,” she said.
First published by the Lansing State Journal on August 6, 2019.