Live in Lansing
Imagine a little Washington DC. That reality is downtown Lansing.
One of the most beautiful sites in the world is the historic Michigan capitol dome carving out its space from a blue Lansing sky. The architecture is majestic and it's the centerpiece to downtown Lansing.
Billions of dollars of the entire state's decision-making takes place in and around the excitement and hustle and bustle of the capitol. Downtown Lansing's historic streets are a mecca of day and evening networking at the sidewalk cafes, on the sidewalks themselves with a passing hello, senators, representatives, lobbyists, association presidents, attorneys, policy wonks, interns, corporate CEOs and presidents, beautiful people everywhere, shaping and building the state, right here from their downtown offices and lofts.
Downtown Lansing is home to the nation's largest and most diverse law school, Cooley Law School with nearly 3,000 students from around the globe. One of the midwest's top children' science museums is located downtown, the Impression 5 Science center. The Boarshead Theater, Riverwalk Theater and the Lansing Civic Players bring wonderful, live productions to downtown. A special treat is Riverwalk's new Black Box theater. The Boarshead is one of only a handful of professional theaters in Michigan, drawing nationally renowned actors and directors year round. How about downtown Oldsmobile Stadium, home to the Lansing Lugnuts, a Class A professional baseball team that attracts an annual total fan base of 350,000, making it one of the most successful minor league teams in the country. Our downtown convention center, the Lansing Center, provides for some of the states top space for conventions and shows. Sparrow Health system is home to thousands of jobs downtown and is also home to the state's fourth largest community college, Lansing Community College as well as Davenport College and the University Center, a single home for satellite offices to many of the other universities and colleges from around the state.
Michigan State University, one of the world's largest universities with 40,000 plus students, is located in beautiful East Lansing, just a couple of miles down Michigan Avenue from downtown Lansing. MSU is an international portal for the city and region and recently MSU was named as the world's new home for the Facility for Rare Isotope particle Beam research, better known as the F-RIB, a $550 million federal project. IBM also recently announced a new facility creating directly and indirectly 1,500 new employees on campus.
The city of Lansing is experiencing its best three years of economic development in the last fifty years. Over $600 million in private investment and over 4,000 private jobs have been created. In downtown alone, between private and public sector, just in 2010 through the first quarter 2011, over 1,500 new, permanent jobs will be locating downtown. The highlight is the new national headquarters for the Accident Fund. They are rehabbing the abandoned Ottawa Power Station on the downtown riverfront, creating 500 new jobs with an investment of $182 million. Indeed, corporate headquarters are building in downtown, scores of high tech and biotech firms are filling up rehabed buildings around the city in connection with Michigan State University, and even GM's two brand new car assembly plants, the most technologically advanced car making plants in the world, are doing well and will be the pinnacle of American car making in the future.
Richard Florida, author of "rise of the Creative Class", on national radio listed Lansing and Ann Arbor as the "two fabulous towns" leading the way in Michigan's revitalization efforts. Recently, Forbes listed the top 30 Worst Cities for Job growth in the United States. Unfortunately, Michigan had nine of those cities. Lansing, Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo were not on the list.
Though the city is traditionally known for its car industry and its nation's best labor/management relations, the city and region are actually a Midwest hub for the finance industry, particularly national headquarters for insurance companies like Accident Fund, Jackson National Life and Auto Owners. All three and others are literally adding now and into the near future thousands of new, professional jobs and major expansions of their corporate headquarters.
Lansing's 115,000 residents are celebrating the city's 150th birthday in 2009! The tri-county region supports Lansing with just over a population of 400,000. Lansing and the region enjoy tremendous employment stability because of state government and Michigan State University. Lansing is a mid-sized, manageable-sized town with never more than a 15 minute commute to anywhere, but with very big city fun with the Broadway shows at Wharton Center and football and basketball weekends at MSU.
Your family will love Lansing!
