Fountains, waterfalls, art to decorate $30M drain project

LANSING – Each year, up to 75,000 pounds of pollutants are dumped in the Red Cedar River: cyanide from car exhaust, gasoline, chloride from road salt and metals.

Much of it comes from the parking lot of the Frandor Shopping Center and the surrounding roads. When Ingham County Drain Commission employees collect samples from the catch basins at Frandor, it is common for them to pull out buckets of black water, said Pat Lindemann, the county drain commissioner.

“We built all these parking lots, but we never considered the river,” Lindemann said. “The river is a mirror image of the land.”

With the proposed $380 million Red Cedar Renaissance planned across the street from Frandor, a former golf course and floodplain will be covered in more concrete, which means more pollution. Lindemann is planning a project that he says will not only solve the flooding and pollution problem, but make the necessary infrastructure a complement to the business corridor and a draw for even more people.

Ranney Park east of Frandor, which is now a grassy plot, will be filled with a series of ponds linked by fountains, streams and waterfalls. The concrete wall that separates the park from the back of Frandor will turn into a vertical rain garden that filters polluted water through a series of plants as it cascades downward through several tiers like a fountain. Lindemann said it could make sludgy water drinkable in three days.

Trails will be added along the park. In the winter, the ponds would turn into ice skating rinks, he said.

Across Michigan Avenue just south of the Red Cedar Renaissance, 32 acres of the former golf course will go through a similar transformation. The water will flow through Ranney Park, under Michigan Avenue and through the Red Cedar development to empty out into larger ponds before reaching the river. Trails will be placed there as well. Educational signs will dot the trails, offering information about preventing pollution. They could be the focus of school field trips, Lindemann said.

The price tag of the Montgomery Drain project could be as much as $30 million. Construction is expected to start this spring, running in conjunction with Red Cedar Renaissance.  It could take up to two years to complete.

"We're using dilapidated infrastructure and making it into a place to live and make people happier," Lindemann said.

Lindemann shared his vision during the Creative Place Making Summit at the Lansing Center on Thursday morning. The event is hosted by the Arts Council of Greater Lansing and brings together speakers from the community and region to discuss how to make the area more attractive for people to live here.

"Every community is competing against each other," said Debbie Mikula, the art council's executive director. "We need to have a way to retain quality businesses and attract new talent. We use arts and culture to make that happen."

The Montgomery Drain would use the arts as another attraction to the updated parks.

Privately funded murals and sculptures would be placed in the parks thanks to a partnership with Art in the Wild, an initiative of the Mid-Michigan Environmental Action Council.

The goal is to raise $10 million to pay for the art, said Melody Angel, chairperson of Art in the Wild and Lindemann's wife. One sculpture is already paid for. The plan is to place it on one of the drain project's fountains in the grass strip of Michigan Avenue. The plain grass strip would be turned into a rain garden that traps water to prevent flooding on the roads.

"We're creating a place that reminds us of what we care about most," Angel said.

It wouldn't be the first time Lindemann has taken on this type of low impact design project. In 1998, he added ponds, streams and waterfalls to the Tollgate Drain in Lansing's Groesbeck neighborhood to make it both a self-contained drainage system and a natural space used by residents of the neighborhood.

"Every neighborhood should have this," he said. "Our greatest asset is water."

Not everyone is enthusiastic about the project. The multi-million dollar price tag has surrounding property owners concerned about how much their taxes might go up to pay for the project.

The owners of Frandor filed a lawsuit in 2014, trying to stop a public hearing over the drain project from taking place. Owner Patrick Corr could not be reached for comment on the current plans.

"I think (the project) has great validity, but no one knows what the cost is," said developer Pat Gillespie of Gillespie Group, which owns the Sears and Midtown Apartments in the drainage district.

"I like a lot of what they talk about, he said. "I just don't know what the financial impact is."

Alexander Alusheff is a reporter at the Lansing State Journal. Contact him at (517) 388-5973 or aalusheff@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @alexalusheff.