MSU Plans to Expand Business Offerings on Campus. Will it Have an Impact on Downtown East Lansing?

Michigan State University is exploring sites on its campus to add restaurants, a hotel, retail stores and housing as part of its Spartan Gateway District project. 

The new developments would serve as a social hub for students and families, aiming to draw more people to the university’s campus. The Spartan Gateway project has evolved over the last year. A 6,000-seat sports arena that was the centerpiece of the initial plan has been dropped, but MSU is still exploring adding retail businesses, office space, dining, housing and a hotel to campus.

While critical details like the exact location of new developments, what businesses will be added to MSU’s campus and the timeline for the project are still being determined, it does seem likely that MSU will soon expand commercial offerings on campus.

The expansion of businesses on campus leaves questions for current business owners, like if increasing offerings on campus – close to sports arenas and other popular MSU venues – will cut into the earnings of businesses in downtown East Lansing.

“I think it [the Gateway District] would be good for those businesses but I’m just hoping it’s not MSU’s goal to never let anyone leave campus,” said Mike Krueger, chair of East Lansing’s Downtown Development Authority. 

Krueger is the owner of popular restaurants Crunchy’s and Peanut Barrel. He’s familiar with the lulls businesses see when students are home for the summer and booms during big events, like MSU sports game days.

Krueger told East Lansing Info that on busy days, restaurants downtown experience long wait times, indicating the city could stand to add establishments.

“There’s room for competition,” he said. “We love having long lines and waits because we know people are waiting, but even if it cuts the waits down and we’re still full, it’s the same difference.” 

Still, Krueger has questions as the development unfolds, like if businesses added to campus will be duplicative of establishments that are already downtown.

He also wonders how closely the university and city will communicate as the plan develops.

“It feels like things might be headed in a positive direction… it kind of felt like the word on the street was there wasn’t a lot of effort between both sides in the past but I can’t confirm that,” Krueger said. 

At the Nov. 18, 2025 City Council meeting, Councilmember Kerry Ebersole Singh said a meeting between university and city officials was scheduled for December, but that it had taken two years to resume a meeting that was previously held quarterly.

City Manager Robert Belleman told ELi that Janet Lillie, assistant vice president for community relations at MSU, and Rebecca DeVooght, vice president of governmental affairs, have been keeping him in the loop regarding updates on the Gateway project. 

“I know they [MSU] are kind of taking a step back, looking at what’s the best fit for the project and overall benefit to the campus as well as the region, which includes East Lansing,” Belleman said. “They’re still in, as I understand it, the preliminary phase of visiting appropriate deployment of [the] Spartan Gateway project.” 

Belleman added that city and university employees often communicate with each other and those discussions don’t always happen in formal meetings.

“I think we get lost sometimes in what we consider everyday partnerships with the university,” Belleman said. “We were just talking about that, how do we continue to bring to the forefront the hours that were invested in planning… There’s constant dialogue between the university officials throughout each department and our staff, so we’re engaged, they’re engaged, and we do work very closely together.”

The Downtown Development Authority, or DDA, is a body mostly made up of business owners that aims to improve the East Lansing’s downtown district. Krueger said the DDA is aware of the Spartan Gateway District project but have not explicitly discussed it yet, since the project is still being developed and there are a lot of unknowns. 

“I’m hoping there can be [some] sort [of]… collaborative effort to study and see what’s necessary,” Krueger said.