Lansing Community College President Brent Knight sees the 1.4 acres on North Capitol Avenue as a great opportunity for expansion: "It's adjacent to the college library and across the street from our university center."
As long as LCC's board approves the $1.2 million purchase, Knight says this property will be developed into a "green space " for students to study, along with a renovated parking lot, before fall classes begin: "and in the long term, the college will build a building on this parcel."
It's a very quick transition, but this sale agreement has been in the works for months.
For some time before that, the property was being sought by Davenport University for their own expansion. But since LCC announced their interest last Fall, the City and College have had months to negotiate a deal, which is why the Mayor says the money will only take a matter of weeks to be transferred to the City.
"This will go a long way towards closing the current deficit we have in this fiscal year," said Mayor Virg Bernero.
It's perfect timing for the City, which was about to have to dip into reserves to pay off the debt. That would likely hurt its good credit rating and possibly cause more layoffs.
The mayor would not give me even a rough idea of what that deficit is: "We will hopefully be defining that shortly," but says this chunk of money will take care of a big portion of it.
"I think this, together with the other measure that we're taking to limit spending, I think and hope will be enough to close the deficit."
Just in time to adopt next fiscal year's budget proposal.
