It has served as a gymnasium, lecture hall and ballroom for
Michigan State University (MSU). It was a primary site for military drills while hosting the
1st Battalion 119th Field Artillery, and had sufficient structural integrity to be a refuge for the community from natural disasters.
But for the past few years, the
Marshall Street Armory building on Lansing’s
Eastside has been sitting dormant, slowly gathering graffiti and a few broken windows, despite being located next to the new
Pattengill Middle School.
Now, its luck has turned, thanks to the and their plans to remodel the Armory to become home to several of Lansing’s leading nonprofit businesses.
Man with a PlanPat Gillespie, founder and president of Gillespie Group, hails from the Lansing’s Eastside and says that growing up near the Armory and then driving by it every day gave him the idea to save it.
“When I was driving around this area, I saw the armory and thought, ‘Man, we’ve got to buy it! It’s too cool of a location to not buy it,’” Gillespie says. “There’s a large gymnasium, which was once used for boxing matches, parties, weddings—it was a community hub. But the last couple of years it hasn’t been used at all. It’s in good shape but fallen into disrepair.”
The plans to refurbish the Armory slowly fell into place after that.
Gillespie sits on the board of the Capital Region Community Foundation, and explains that they were “talking about combining some of the nonprofits and wondering, ‘How do we do it? Where is this being done in other places?’ So I thought I would help,” Gillespie says.
Although Gillespie has a solid end product for this project in mind, the process has been time-consuming with numerous steps, and it’s a project unlike any the Gillespie Group has undertaken before.
“We’re used to doing new buildings from the ground up, which is rewarding and nice, but we never have [buildings that already have] history like this, where we sit and talk to people who did drills [there] or pull up ‘history’ on Google and find that MSU students used to take a horse and buggy down there for dances,” Gillespie says.
From Drab to FabGillespie is striving to maintain the historical integrity of the building and make sure the remodel fits into the community that surrounds it. “We turned in documents to make it a federal historic site and a state historic site. We want to keep the integrity but change some [things], give it a new use,” he says.
He currently has two people researching the building’s history in order to help him with the design aspects as well as to put together facts and pictures that can be used once the project is finished. He plans to adorn several of the walls with photos and information to celebrate the building’s history and tell its story.
“It’s amazing to see the cool, quirky stuff that comes out,” he says. The lives of people from around the country, some of the soldiers who fought [for our country and trained at the Armory]—we run into stuff like this every day.”
He’s keeping some of the original parts of the building and making only the changes that seem the most worthwhile and productive. Outside, Gillespie plans to plant trees, take down the fencings and replace them with wrought-iron fences, add new landscaping, islands in the parking lots, and street lights to make the Armory more inviting.
Inside, he plans to create 22-24 foot high, open ceilings above the offices. He is going to keep the old wood gymnasium floor with its lines, like the three-point basketball lines, and add cool, invigorating colors.
“This is going to give you a whole new feeling of energy and creativity, which is why the nonprofits are interested,” Gillespie says.
A United FollowingThe idea is to have multiple nonprofit organizations move into the finished Armory in order to combine forces. The proposed move-in date is planned for January 2011.
According to Gillespie, the combination of numerous nonprofits under one roof is being done all over the country to save money and maximize the use of space. The idea is to combine offices and organizations with common themes, encouraging collaboration and efficiency.
If the revitalization of the Armory is a success, there is room to add more nonprofit organizations, allowing upwards of seven or eight nonprofits to collaborate with one another. The Armory also sits on five acres of land, which is plenty of room to add other buildings or expand the structure in the future.
Gillespie has also been going out into the community, talking to neighborhood groups and locals to see what they want done with the Armory.
“I was born and raised in that area and used to play by the Armory, so I went to two or three of the neighborhood meetings to see what they wanted there, what they didn’t want, and what was sacred to them,” Gillespie says. “I wanted to be cognizant of what the neighbors wanted, and the feedback we’ve had is incredible. Everyone wants to see [the Armory] saved instead of torn down because it’s more of an asset to the housing values than a detriment.”
Nancy Mahlow, president of the Eastside’s
Allen Neighborhood Center, has worked closely with Gillespie for years and is 100 percent behind him and his vision for the project.
“The Armory project is smack-dab in my neighborhood; I live two blocks away,” Mahlow says. “We were very excited to find out that Pat Gillespie was working on this project. We call him ‘our developer,’ because he’s this just overall neighborhood-friendly guy.”
The Allen Neighborhood Center keeps close tabs on the Eastside neighborhood. Over the years, they have developed good working relationships with city leaders, the mayor, city department heads, nearby Lansing Township and other businesses in the area.
“This is going to revitalize this good, old building,” Mahlow says. “They’ll be right in the middle of our neighborhood; we’re looking at all of the options with what this is going to bring to the area and we’re very excited.”
Joan Nelson, Director of Allen Neighborhood Center, agrees. “What’s particularly exciting to us is that there is a growing nonprofit distinct on Michigan Avenue, and the prospect of four or more large nonprofits moving in can’t help but be catalytic in enhancing the district,” she says.
“We’re hoping folks who work at the nonprofits will discover the assets of neighborhoods and bring attention and additional energy to this vibrant area to help maximize the community objectives.”
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Kelsey Turek is a fresh alumnae of MSU who loves everything about writing because "you get to meet new people and have the opportunity to learn something every day."
Dave Trumpie is the managing photographer for Capital Gains. He is a freelance photographer and owner of Trumpie Photography.
Photos:
The Marshall Street Armory as it looks today and renderings of its future.
Renderings courtesy of Gillespie Group
All Photographs © Dave Trumpie