Despite odds, coalition keeps fighting for old Eastern High School

“It’s still there,” Andrew Muylle, an Eastside resident and 2013 Eastern High School alumnus, said. “The windows are boarded, but it’s still there, and we want to do everything we can.”

Muylle was one of about 20 people who showed up in Old Town last Thursday night, despite fresh snow and temperatures in the teens, to continue their uphill fight against the University of Michigan Health-Sparrow’s plan to tear down old Eastern.

There was an air of resilience as Muylle and other leaders of The Coalition to Preserve Eastern High School and Promote Mental Health spoke. Despite setbacks and a relationship with UM-Sparrow as cold as the icicles along Cesar Chavez Avenue, an increasing sense of urgency was motivating them.

The coalition has been fighting since June 2024, when UM-Sparrow confirmed plans to build a psychiatric hospital on the site of the 97-year-old building. The coalition supports the new facility, but members disagree that building the hospital necessitates destroying the entire school, which closed in 2019. University of Michigan Health acquired Sparrow Health System in 2023 and with it old Eastern, which Sparrow purchased from the Lansing School District in 2015. Sparrow never specified plans for the building, but it indicated a desire to reuse it, community members have said.

While an initial meeting with health system representatives seemed promising, UM-Sparrow executive Margaret Dimond refused in August to continue negotiations, citing bad faith by Save Eastern advocates, which they insist wasn’t the case. And despite a 5-0 resolution in July by the Lansing Historic District Commission to urge preservation, the City Council declined in August to study whether to declare the site a historic district.

Even with those roadblocks and the lack of support for their cause from Lansing’s power structure, the coalition is calling on Mayor Andy Schor and the University of Michigan board to stop the demolition. The Board of Regents has yet to approve the plan. It meets Thursday (Feb. 20) but Eastern’s fate is not on the agenda.

One of the coalition members who attended last week’s meeting, Jennifer Grau, said she once delivered a presentation to Sparrow employees on the health system’s history of conflict and compromise with eastside residents, which she is. They liked it so much they asked her to record it for Sparrow’s archives.

Now, she feels hurt by UM-Sparrow’s silence.

“It’s not that these differences were insignificant,” she said in an interview. “At the time, they were impediments that looked like the project was not going to be resolvable in a win-win way.”

Grau referenced the then-controversial Sparrow Professional Building, completed in 1997, as one such difference. The planned 10-story building would have obstructed the eastside’s iconic view. Through collaboration with the Eastside Neighborhood Organization, Sparrow agreed to change the building from 10 to seven stories, set it further back on the lot and make the skybridge windowed so as to preserve the Capitol view. A parking garage was also built to direct traffic away from what was then a neighboring elementary school.

“We have a lot of history and knowledge of doing that,” Grau said. “And to be dismissed, and to ignore that history because they are a new owner of this institution, is frankly disrespectful.”

After “three major expansions of this hospital, and hard work through the ‘60s through the ‘90s, of relationship-building,” Grau said, UM-Sparrow no longer seems interested in collaboration. But the coalition journeys on.

The preservationists agree that the old high school is not suited to the needs of a psychiatric hospital, as UM-Sparrow has contended. They aim to preserve the west wing, which is visible from Pennsylvania Avenue, and the Jon Young auditorium, both of which they argue are culturally and architecturally significant. They concede the rest to be bulldozed.

Muylle, the main speaker at Thursday’s meeting, stressed the psychiatric facility’s importance. He was careful to note that Eastern’s west wing and auditorium do not overlap with the planned facility’s footprint, rendering unnecessary the destruction of a historic building.

This focus comes in response to dissenters on internet forums such as Reddit, who have argued that the need for psychiatric care outweighs the old high school’s value. Some have called the coalition NIMBYs, accusing them of opposing development in their community.

“We don’t want to stand in the way of progress,” said Muylle after the meeting. “We want to be part of it by collaborating to find a path to tandem preservation and construction.”

Becky Stimson, a 1972 Eastern alumnus and another speaker at Thursday’s meeting, believes that characterization is deliberate on the part of UM-Sparrow.

“They continually represent us as being against mental healthcare,” said Stimson. “We have never said that this is an either-or situation. That is their narrative.”

Grau contended that the coalition might be more sympathetic if UM-Sparrow explained why Eastern’s destruction was necessary. Instead, UM-Sparrow has been unwilling to explain what they intend to do with the property, including where the west wing and auditorium now stand.

“They may have a very good reason why it must be that way,” Grau said in an interview. “And if they were to share that very good reason with the community, we might be understanding.”

A statement from UM-Sparrow to City Pulse last week did not directly provide a reason, but it noted that “several things” were necessary to build the best possible behavioral health facility, including “proximity to the Sparrow Emergency Department, enough acreage for a calming outdoor clinical environment and an internal layout that meets regulatory requirements for clinical services and supports the safety of patients and care teams, as well as the needs of patients.” While the planned build site does not overlap with the west wing or auditorium, the buildings may conflict with the necessary acreage or regulatory requirements.

The statement also noted that UM-Sparrow is “working with Eastern alumni leaders to ensure we meaningfully honor the history and value of the school by preserving specific artifacts and establishing a garden area” to reflect the location’s history.

But the preservationists argue that it is the architecture itself, not the artifacts, that are in dire need of preservation. Keepsakes are not enough, says Muylle, because the group is motivated by more than sentimentality.

“A lot of members didn’t even go to Eastern,” said Muylle. “This is about the sense of place, landscape, and identity for Lansing.”

They have made a website, www.easternfacts.com, aiming to present their side of the story. Among other things, the site places a video from UM-Sparrow depicting Eastern in disrepair alongside another video showing better-preserved parts of the school. The coalition is particularly adamant that UM-Sparrow deliberately showed two decommissioned boilers, while failing to show the newer replacements in the same room. They argue this portrayal is dishonest and exaggerates the building’s dilapidation.

UM-Sparrow’s statement describes the building as “dilapidated and dangerous, with extensive water damage and numerous health and safety hazards.” It also notes “prevalent” asbestos and mold that UM-Sparrow is removing, though asbestos must be removed whether the building is demolished or remodeled.

The coalition has also created a petition on change.org. In two weeks, it has received nearly 500 e-signatures.

UM-Sparrow also noted that the project requires final approval from the U of M regents. Bill Castanier, a coalition member and president of the Historical Society of Greater Lansing, spoke at a board meeting in October, but his Save Eastern message provoked no public response. However, one regent upbraided him afterward for standing in the way of progress.

Stimson said she expects UM-Sparrow to make a move in April. Until then, she and other coalition members will meet, send mail to regents and picket outside of Eastern.

“You can’t slow down,” said Stimson.