Schor searches for developer to rebuild Lansing City Hall

FRIDAY, Feb. 4 — Lansing Mayor Andy Schor is again rebooting plans to relocate, renovate or reconstruct City Hall and find a new home for the 54A District Court and the Police Department.

A broad request for proposals released by Schor’s office yesterday afternoon seeks to contract with a developer to “relocate” City Hall, the courtrooms and the Police headquarters from ithe corner of Michigan and Capitol avenues to a “single location consisting of one facility or complex or multiple properties,” either through renovations or new construction.

“A new City Hall that will better serve residents has been a major need in Lansing for many years,” Schor said in a statement. “I look forward to the creative responses from those interested in transforming these key properties in the city. It’s time that we finally address this need, and bringing these projects to fruition will be great for Lansing residents and visitors.”

Development proposals should “foster economic development” downtown and “maximize the redevelopment opportunity” at the existing City Hall building by putting it back on the tax rolls. Additionally, city officials want the new facility to lead to a reduction in annual occupancy costs.

The City Hall building, which was built in the late 1950s, regularly siphons a half-million dollars annually in maintenance costs and requires about $80 million to be fully repaired, city officials said. Former Mayor Virg Bernero launched plans in 2017 to offload the site to a developer and relocate the city’s offices to a new location. Those plans, so far, have only stalled under Schor.

In 2018, Schor tapped the brakes on Bernero’s plan to have City Hall developed into a restaurant and hotel until he could find a concrete place to relocate, consolidate or eliminate the district court and police lockup that also share the downtown space with the city’s offices. 

The biggest barrier, at the time, was financing the plans, Schor explained last year.

“That plan did not address the courts and lock-up. We looked and we couldn’t afford it,” Schor explained. “I’d love to get out of the lock-up business. We know there’s a need for this, it’s just about pulling it all together and finding one entity, a master developer, that can help finance it.”

In November 2020, Schor told City Pulse that he was “actively looking at options” — including a unified facility with Ingham County that could see the city’s lock-up shut down entirely. And last January, Schor released a similar “Request for Qualifications and Proposals” to find a new plan — which had also solicited conceptual plans to relocate or reconstruct the Lansing Center.

This year’s request is only for City Hall, the 54A District Court and the Police Department. A spokesman for Schor’s office said it would also allow for the possibility of combining proposals, meaning that multiple developers could work together to offload City Hall and build a new one.

“The city has learned so much from our past experiences looking for solutions for new city facilities,” Schor's statement said. “We will take these lessons and seek new ideas to find solutions that work for city government, our courts, police and Lansing taxpayers.”

Any proposals  will be weighed based on a variety of factors — in order from the financial benefit to the city, the economic impact downtown and the developer’s experience. To make it work, the city is also willing to lease or sell the City Hall building, the parking ramp on South Capitol Avenue and the parking lot on the corner of Lenawee Street and Grand Avenue. 

Development proposals can be submitted through 2 p.m.  March 8. A “short list” of potential developers will be decided by March 21. Interviews are slated for March 31. And if all goes according to plan, Schor hopes to decide on a relocation plan by April, city officials explained.