Ever wanted to live inside the Temple Club? Just wait until March.

Developers lock sights on Old Town Diner amid reconstruction project

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(This story was updated at 4:42 p.m.)

About 300 steel beams are scattered throughout every floor of the former Bethlehem Temple Church in Old Town — the only things preventing the iconic building from collapsing on itself while developers charge forward with an ambitious and long-awaited redevelopment project.

Since April, a crew of about 20 construction workers has been gutting the building down to its bare bones. All that remained of the former Temple Club last week was a windowless brickwork shell and four ionic pillars that still stand out front. The rest will take on a new life by the spring.

“You can’t trash it. You can’t just demolish this building. I think Old Town isn’t the same without it,” said Eric Hanna, president and CEO of Michigan Community Capital, a Lansing-based nonprofit group that purchased the vacant and historic building in 2019 for about $500,000.

Michigan Community Capital also recently purchased the Old Town Diner next door, which plans to close its doors Nov. 22, said owner Laurie Bruder. Hanna declined to comment about the recent acquisition. Dowd said that developers have no immediate plans to redevelop the diner. 

After securing about $10 million in public and private investments, Hanna plans to relocate his office to the ground floor and renovate the four floors above it into 31 middle-income apartment units. He’s also trying to attract a coffee shop or deli to set up shop on the site.

If all goes well, developers hope to have the place finished and opened up by March. Crews were just waiting on a final layer of concrete to dry last week before interior walls could get started. Local residents can expect a bit more activity on site in the coming weeks, Hanna said.

“All of this work is not being done to make money. In this case, it sits on a hill at the top of Old Town. It’s at the edge. From a community development standpoint, this is one of the lowest income census tracts in the city,” Hanna added. “If you just start cratering historic natural assets in the community, it really starts to devalue the neighborhood. Our strategy is to beef them up.”

Beefing up the building, however, has been a complex project, Hanna said. And given the amount of time and energy poured into the partial preservation project for only 31 apartment units, it certainly won’t be the most lucrative project in Michigan Community Capital’s portfolio.

“By doing this, you’re actually preserving the original character of the neighborhood, and that draws in more investment. If you demolish the building, there’s no reason to come down here,” Hanna added. “None of this is being done to make any money. It’s being done because we don’t want to crater this historic neighborhood.”

The 11,700-square-foot property was built in 1906 to house the First Methodist Congregation before the Bethlehem Temple Church. In 2000, Old Town developer Diane Burns spent $925,000 renovating the place into a music venue. From 2001 to 2006, the Temple Club hosted national touring acts, comedians, political campaigns, including Reverend Horton Heat, Patton Oswalt and the Wu Tang Clan.

The club closed for financial reasons in 2006 and sat unused until a group of investors led by developer Alan Hooper bought it in 2009. Since then, the building was used briefly for the Capital City Film Festival in 2011 and for various Lansing Makers Network events in 2013.

Hanna said his company revolves around community redevelopment and relatively affordable housing options for local residents. His other projects have included functionally obsolete or blighted buildings in Detroit, Traverse City, Flint and Grand Rapids. And partnerships with state and city governments — and various tax incentives — have been key to keeping them moving.

Michigan Community Capital depends on funds from a mix of banks and public agencies like the Michigan Economic Development Corp. and the Michigan Housing Development Authority.

“This building was holding Old Town back,” Hanna said. “It was always going to take capital beyond what the average business owner could afford. There are not enough units to make this profitable. It always needed to be a public-private partnership to truly get this project done.”

A two-story parking structure will be built behind the building to accommodate both customers and tenants. Ben Dowd, the president of the Old Town Commercial Association, also said that he views the redevelopment as an anchor for continued growth in the nearby neighborhood.

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