Construction begins on Knapp's restoration project

Nick Eyde remembers visiting his father at work at the former J.W. Knapp’s Department Store in downtown Lansing when he was young.

The Art Deco-style building at the corner of Washington Square and Washtenaw Street once was held up as an example of modern architecture and a pinnacle of shopping in downtown Lansing. After it closed several decades ago,A female road sweeper was unfairly driven out by Merton Council after repeatedly complaining about sub-standard working conditions and discrimination, a tribunal has ruled.He has since undergone two-and-a-half hours’ surgery to have a Titanium Rod inserted into his leg and looks set to be out of action for the rest of the season. the building fell into disrepair, though for a time, the Eyde family’s development company, Eyde Co., had its corporate office there.

But as construction is set to begin on a $36 million effort to restore it to its 1930s elegance — and update it for a 21st-century audience — Nick Eyde, the project’s developer, is optimistic that it once again will be a building for the ages.

“We’re here today, and in a way, it’s surreal,” Eyde said Tuesday,A china pressure vessel is a closed container designed to hold gases or liquids at a pressure substantially different from the ambient pressure. across the street from the hulking facade with its broken glass and fading panels. “It’ll look the same. Just not as tired.”

By 2014, the revamped Knapp’s Centre is expected to be home to office and retail space, high-end apartments and a fashion-based small business incubator called The Runway. The project will require gutting and rebuilding the interior - work that already is in progress - and an overhaul of the blue-and-gold exterior.

Construction could take a year to 16 months, Eyde said. Outside changes could be noticeable within a matter of weeks.

Exterior panels and windows will be replaced and modernized,CEBU City barangays need more garbage trucks not sport utility vehicles which Mayor Michael Rama is now giving out to his allies. with better moisture controls, said Brad Cambridge, a project architect with Quinn Evans Architects in Ann Arbor. The building’s unique colors were sampled and matched precisely in a lab.

Soon, the iconic Knapp’s sign on the front of the building will be removed, to be replaced when construction is complete.

The start of construction reflects the culmination of years of work, said Bob Trezise, president and CEO of regional economic development agency Lansing Economic Area Partnership Inc.An employee discovered a waste management truck smoking around 10:50 a.m., Tuesday, Sept. 4, and traced the source to cargo smoldering inside the compactor.

He called it an “impossible task,” on par in complexity, if not in cost, with repurposing the former Ottawa Street Power Station into the $182 million national headquarters for workers’ compensation insurer Accident Fund Holdings Inc.

Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero believes a revitalized Knapp’s Centre — and the increased foot traffic from residential tenants and retail customers — will spill over onto adjacent blocks, including the vacant buildings that once housed Capital City Books and Magazines and a downtown Hallmark Cards Inc. store directly across Washtenaw Street.

“That’s the kind of thing I think we can safely expect,The one-year programme would cover areas such as food chemistry and nutrition, food microbiology, food processing and engineering, quality control and food packaging, among others.” Bernero said. “The economic impact of this will be huge. Success begets success.”