Eastern High School supporters criticize U-M plan for building

Mike Ellis, Lansing State Journal

Mon, December 2, 2024

LANSING — Even as they pleaded for something different to happen, many supporters of the former Lansing Eastern High School building acknowledged that their efforts may be too late.

About 10 people, representing a larger crowd in the audience, spoke at Monday's Lansing City Council meeting, urging officials to save the historic building. They urged preservation, whether that could look like city leaders denying demolition permits or instead reaching out to urge University of Michigan Health-Sparrow to spare the building.

John Foren, a spokesperson for the health care system, attended Monday's meeting and said the plans to build a psychiatric care facility on the property have not been changed.

The city council voted earlier this year to urge the health care system to preserve the building. A later vote to study the building's history was rejected. Council members on Monday did not address the crowd of people asking for a pause, or some alternative, to preserve the school.

The building was home to students for almost a century. It was sold by the Lansing School District in 2016 to Sparrow, which has since been acquired by U-M-Health.

The hospital system says the former high school is too dilapidated to be renovated into a functioning psychiatric care facility. Health care building codes are stricter than what is needed to make a residential building or a safe school, Staci Bakkegard, the regional director of facilities, planning and construction for U-M Health-Sparrow, said in August.

Most of the preservationists said they want only a partial restoration: Keep the western wing of the former high school and an auditorium while using the rest of the building and the 18-acre campus to build the new hospital.

"The former Eastern High is U-M Health’s property, it has the right to demolish the building," said Andrew Muylle, a representative of the Coalition to Preserve Historic Eastern High School and Promote Mental Health.

Muylle said he's a graduate of Eastern and the goal is to preserve a small portion of the building which could be used for a variety of purposes, from a medical library or temporary housing for visiting staff to administrative offices and as a training center.

Judith Evans was the only person to speak in support of the demolition of the school, and said she wanted to focus on mental health access.

"I do not believe buildings are sacred," she said. "I believe people are sacred."

Bill Castanier, president of the Historical Society of Greater Lansing, said the building is an important piece of architectural history, designed by Irving Pond and Allen Pond, who also designed student unions at Michigan State University and the University of Michigan as well as other collegiate-style buildings.

"And ironically," he said, "an early version of Sparrow hospital."

Castanier said U-M completed a restoration of its student union, a Pond and Pond building like Eastern, for $85 million in 2020.

Castanier said he spoke at a U-M Board of Regents meeting this fall. The regents ultimately oversee the health system, and he has not heard back from the health system or the university.

"No one has been in touch with us," he said.

Castanier said Lansing has pulled off the impossible before: A former Eastern teacher, David Hollister, was mayor in the 1980s when a city-wide effort to keep GM in town led to the city getting two auto manufacturing plants, which was unprecedented.

Dale Schrader, a former president of Preservation Lansing, said Eastern is one of the area's top 10 architectural gems.

"I wrote this speech, I hoped it wasn’t too late but if it is too late, how did we get to this point?" he asked, echoing many of the opponents of U-M's plan.

Many supporters of the building's preservation said they felt that chances to stop or shape the changes may have passed and that the city should do more earlier in the process the next time an important building could be demolished.

He said U-M has done notable preservation work within Ann Arbor but does not appear to be making any effort to preserve even a small portion of Eastern.

"They’re coming into Lansing and this is our structure here and I don’t think we should allow that to happen," he said. "We get to the point that it's a crisis. Maybe next time we can have a reasonable discussion before this becomes a crisis. Because very soon we’ll be talking about the loss of this wonderful building."