A rendering of what the exterior of Pizzawala's, an Indian-style pizza restaurant, may look like. The restaurant is expected to open downtown in late November or early December. (From meeting agenda)

Development Updates: Pizzawala’s Expects to Open this Winter; Temporary Sauna Park No Longer in the Works

A new downtown pizza restaurant still plans open soon, though later than initially expected, and a sauna park approved to temporarily operate in East Lansing no longer has plans to come to the city, according to business owners.

Pizzawala’s, an Indian-inspired pizza restaurant, is expected to open in late November or early December, according to the franchise owner Sougata Roy. 

The restaurant is taking over a space previously occupied by an MSUFCU bank, located at 523 E. Grand River Ave., next to Peanut Barrel in downtown East Lansing. In an application reviewed by the city’s Planning Commission, business owners previously said they hoped to open in August.

“[The building] used to be an MSUFCU, so it needs a lot of work. It took a long time to get the permits, but now we have all those, so we’re fully into the construction mode,” Roy said. 

A rendering of what the interior of Pizzawala’s may look like. (From meeting agenda)

Each phase during construction has different inspections that can take time, Roy explained.

“For example, once you put the pipes in the ground for plumbing, and before you seal them off, the city needs to inspect them before moving ahead,” he said. “We could do some demo before all the plans were approved, but then we had to wait for some until after we had the licenses and everything.”

Pizzawala’s plans to start hiring staff around late October or early November, and students are encouraged to apply. 

“I’m really hoping to get some MSU students, so we will place something in front of the restaurant with a link to apply,” Roy said. 

Temporary sauna park is no longer happening 

Timber Sauna Company is no longer pursuing the temporary sauna park in the lot next to Crunchy’s due to conditions that made it expensive for a trial run, according to the company’s Co-founder Daniel Downes. 

The company received approval to operate for a trial twice. Initially, council approved the sauna park to run from January to late April 2025, but developers were unable to obtain proper permits from the state in time. In April, council agreed to give the company another year to operate in East Lansing.

A rendering of a sauna park that was approved to temporarily operate in East Lansing, but no longer has plans to do so. (From meeting agenda)

The temporary nature of approval ended up making it too risky to open a site, Downes explained.

“We were facing a permanent building code right away for the site…we only had temporary permission from the city to do it, and we didn’t think it was wise to put 100 grand into the site when the City Council could decide they didn’t want to continue it,” he said.

There isn’t a streamlined process on how to set up a seasonal business in East Lansing, and Timber Sauna Co. experienced some unforeseen challenges that only money could fix. 

“It was hard because there wasn’t a set of parameters we were given that we could’ve set the site up in,” Downes said. “While going through the zoning and building permit process, it wasn’t clear how to successfully go about it other than spending a ton of money on infrastructure… it’s not wise with temporary permission to go and set all of it up and then not have a long-term feasibility with that.”

The company is currently searching for a potential new site in the greater Lansing area, while keeping in mind the importance of amenities.  

“The biggest thing with these experiences is the amenities—we call it a wet noodle syndrome—when you have a pop-up site that you use saunas and cold plunges, but there’s not a changing area, and you have to go back to your house to clean up before you go out again,” Downes continued. “We’re trying to avoid that and find another site that we can do something more permanent right away, so we’re not stuck with the same dilemma when we pursue something temporary….It’s kind of up in the air; we aren’t sure who the right partner or location would be.”