DDA, Planning Commission Recommend Large Apartment Downtown, but Parking Could Still Sink Project
A 10-story apartment proposed for downtown East Lansing has been recommended by the city’s Planning Commission and Downtown Development Authority, but a parking requirement could still be a hurdle for developers.
The building proposed at 530 Albert Ave., where the Bailey surface parking lot currently sits, would feature a mix of studio, one-, two-, and three-bedroom units and house 436 residents.
The apartment proposed by Minnesota-based Tareen Development Partners includes amenities like a coffee shop, pet spa, wellness center, basketball court, grilling stations and a club/game room. Units are expected to cost between $1,900 for a studio apartment and $4,400 for a three bedroom.
Developers hope to break ground on the project in early October and complete construction by the summer of 2028.
The main concern about the proposed apartment is parking, as residents in nearby neighborhoods worry tenants of the building and visitors will use their streets for parking and business owners in the area have said removing the last surface parking lot in the area would have adverse impacts.
The apartment would be built over about two-thirds of the 86 parking spaces in the lot. The rest would remain public parking. Under the city code, developers are not allowed to build new parking without a waiver in the zoning district the project is proposed.
The site plan recommended by the Downtown Development Authority, or DDA, and Planning Commission did not require parking. However, developers are now being told they will need to have a parking plan approved later on, a requirement that was not made clear until recently.
The Planning Commission will consider approving the parking plan at its July 22 meeting, a day after the site plan for the apartment will be before the City Council. The council could delay a vote on the apartment until after the Planning Commission decides whether to approve the parking plan or condition approval on an approved parking plan, Senior Planner Alycia Reiten explained at the June 24 Planning Commission meeting.
Parking has been an issue for projects previously proposed for the site.
In 2023, American Community Developers proposed a five-story workforce housing apartment building. The City Council rejected that plan following community and business backlash regarding the loss of parking spaces. Some residents also objected to the city granting a tax break to developers proposing the project.
In late 2025, Tareen Development Partners proposed building a 13-story market-rate apartment building with two levels of interior public parking containing 83 public parking spaces to offset the loss of the surface lot. Still, some concerns were raised about residents of the building parking in neighborhoods.
At the Planning Commission meeting, Commissioner Chuck Overbey asked Cody Dietrich, the vice president of development at Tareen Development Partners, why it moved away from the previous proposal, which multiple commissioners said they preferred.
He explained that building two floors of public parking for the project was not financially feasible when the city was also requiring developers to meet a requirement that 25% of units be diverse housing and the council was not open to granting developers a tax break. Developers do not need to include diverse housing in the current proposal because it was shrunk to avoid a height threshold that triggers a special use permit requirement.
The City Council delayed a vote on the previous proposal in March, and it did not return to the body later.
“This is essentially the fourth iteration of development that we’ve seen in the past few years on this site…,” said Commissioner Josh Ramirez-Roberts. “The city has said no to the project without parking, they’ve said no to the project with parking, and we’re getting into a cycle here where essentially to vote no on this project puts us into a very legally questionable area of discriminatory zoning.”
Developers would lease 110 parking spaces from city lots for residents to use. Developers have said they expect the apartment to be used inhabited primarily by Michigan State University students who do not have cars.
Residents from the nearby Bailey Neighborhood have said they anticipate tenants of the apartment and visitors will use their neighborhood for parking. Overbey shared those concerns as a resident of the area and said the city will have to “beef up” enforcement of parking rules in the neighborhood.
“As a resident … I will be dependent on parking enforcement to help us keep the residents that live in this building from flooding into our neighborhood and taking up the existing parking in our neighborhood,” Overbey said.
The downtown apartment proposal has been discussed since last year, but developers were not told a parking plan would need to be submitted until recently. At the June 25 Downtown Development Authority, or DDA, meeting, Mayor Erik Altmann said the city “fumbled the ball” on making requirements clear and voted against recommending the project because a parking plan has not been submitted.
A different large apartment proposed for downtown that the DDA and Planning Commission previously recommended will also need to have a parking plan approved, Reiten said.
Members of the DDA expressed concerns about the city code being open to interpretation and that expectations for developers are not being made clear.
“We are either open to business and development or we are not,” DDA Treasurer Jeff Smith said. “We cannot ask developers to go back after six months, eight months of expenditures on a project this big and tell them ‘No, we were wrong about how we misinterpreted our original misinterpretation.’ That is not a sound way to operate.”
Before voting in favor of recommending the apartment, members of the Planning Commission said dense housing near Michigan State University is needed and it could pull students out of rental homes in the neighborhoods.
The Planning Commission unanimously recommended the site plan, while the DDA recommended it in a 6-5 vote. The site plan will be before the City Council at its July 21 meeting.
This story was updated to clarify zoning rules regarding new parking.