West Village

Emily Soracco, sales and marketing director for One Source Real Estate and Consulting, a Grand Rapids firm hired by developer Jerome Abood to manage sales of the 15 town homes that comprise West Village, said that “the project is going fantastic,” and that spring and summer ’07 are witnessing a “major building stage” of the 1,500 to 2,000 –square-foot homes along Grand River Avenue and Hillcrest Street where the old Greyhound bus station used to be, about two blocks west of People’s Church.

The two-bedroom, two-bath dwellings include a two-stall attached garage, with an open kitchen leading to a living room on the main floor, and the bedrooms and bathrooms upstairs. Add to this a view of Valley Court Park, granite countertops, stainless steel appliances, and prices ranging from $259,900 to $359,900, and it’s no surprise that “people are very interested in them,” Soracco said, with one sold already, and the anticipation that they’ll be “very close to sold out by the time they’re done in the fall.”

Nearby, the Abood firm is giving the Flats Building just north of Valley Court Park “a full renovation inside and out,” Soracco continued. Formerly apartments, when the project wraps in mid-August, the building will be home to studio, one-and two-bedroom condos priced in the $110,000 to $150,000 range. Soracco said the overhaul gave Abood the opportunity to donate all the building’s existing appliances to Habitat for Humanity, something that both parties are very excited about.

The third leg to West Village is Park Place (not the one from Monopoly), located on the corner of Grand River Avenue and Delta Street, and soon to be anchored by office and retail space. This development is aimed at empty-nesters, down-sizers and sports-hungry alumni who want a place to stay during their chosen season(s). The units will have up to 1,500 square feet of living space, no stairs, storage available onsite and a secured parking structure.

Located in the historical district of East Lansing, all exterior work in West Village has been approved by the city, Soracco said, something very important to Abood, and that she’s confident that the many amenities, along with “awesome green space in the backyard” and the city’s planned stage in Valley Court Park will give people even more reason to call the three developments home.

Stonehouse Village

In the 1970s, we learned that “they paved paradise and put up a parking lot.” But starting summer 2007, David Krause and Doug Cron of Cron Management, LLC are turning an East Lansing parking lot into a 36-unit slice of paradise called Stonehouse Village on the corner of Albert Avenue and Bailey Street. Krause, who graduated from MSU and has worked in development around the university his entire post-college life, said that the project has been “about two years in the thought process,” and that it is the “only condo development that we’ve done” along the 600 block of Grand River Avenue, a mixed-use development “that is retail-commercial and apartments” and has been going on since 1984.

Krause said construction on Stonehouse Village began in late May, and the model unit should be available by the time you’re reading this. “There was a lot of infrastructure [work] to be done,” he added, the kind of thing that people who live there never see. Although construction is expected to take about one year, Krause said that five people are already interested in purchasing units.

Units include three one-bedroom condos, 27 of the two-bedroom variety, and six penthouse suites, all of which have varying floor plans, and three of which have a turret unit with five windows in the octagon-shaped room. All units will be “very well appointed, with [a] private elevator entrance, storage compartment, and a view of downtown East Lansing and the MSU campus,” according to Krause. With affordable preconstruction prices ranging from $180,000 to $300,000, it’s not surprising that interest is already developing in moving in.

Krause and Cron have worked very closely with the City of East Lansing on the project, one designed to appeal to people living in the area who have gone to the university, new faculty, professors looking to downsize a bit and other groups. Krause said that it’s “part of the city’s overall goal to have more permanent residents” right in the downtown area.

They’re also working with the MSU horticultural department to put a green roof on the finished building that will help alleviate the storm water runoff. Because he and Cron “like to do something every couple of years,” they’re “looking into moving ahead on the 200 block off of Albert Street,” another piece of property that could very well be the city’s next parcel of paradise.