Students excited about new retail space, question need for additional housing
The face of Mission Street is changing as city planners approved the demolition of two well-known businesses.
Pho Viet and Antiques Center of Mount Pleasant will be demolished to make room for "Campus Commons," a mix of housing and retail space. Part-owner of LaBelle Realty Brandon LaBelle said plans are in beginning stages of building student-housing and new retail space.
"We are still working on finalizing the design to send it to contractors for bid," LaBelle said.
LaBelle purchased the properties in early 2014. Plans so far show a building with four retail spaces on the first floor with apartments on its second floor. A second building will feature townhomes, LaBelle said.
"Based on their proximity to campus, they're meant more for the student clientelle," LaBelle said.
Hell senior Lauren Sutter said she doesn't think Mount Pleasant needs more student housing, but had some ideas on what the business spaces should be.
"We see a lot of chain restaurants in town, so it might be nice to see something independently-owned," she said.
Pho Viet's owners, Phoung and Kim Nguyen, have no plans to relocate their restaurant. The brother-sister management team began leasing the property at 1720 S. Mission Street in 2014.
Kim Nguyen also owns the adjacent Sky Nails Spa & Salon. News of the demolition was “a little depressing,” Kim said, especially since she and Phoung were looking forward to an uptick in student business this fall.
The antiques store, however, will move to another building. Where and when it relocates are still undecided, said co-owner Lynette Pendred.
"You can't reserve a building six months in advance, so we don't know," Pendred said. "Hopefully we can find somewhere here in Mount Pleasant."
Pendred has owned Antiques Center of Mount Pleasant for 14 years; altogether, the store has been at 1718 S. Mission St. for 22 years. She called the change “overwhelming.”
“(Our customers) are worried that they’re not going to have us to shop at,” she said. “We’ve found a couple of places and have some ideas. Nothing is just set in stone yet. Buildings in Mount Pleasant are so expensive. Being able to afford it is going to be difficult.”
Labelle, who was given the go-ahead for the project by the Mount Pleasant Planning Commission, doesn't have a set time table of when demolition or construction will begin.
Both buildings are part of the city's Mission Redevelopment Overlay Zone, an area that allows the city to relax traditional zoning rules if a developer builds stylistic properties on Mission Street. The zone is intended to promote the redevelopment and rehabilitation of buildings and properties along and adjacent to Mission Street. Design standards of new buildings were created to measurably improve the city's tax base and overall appearance, according to the Mount Pleasant Zoning Ordinance.
City Manager Nancy Ridley said the city depends on owners like LaBelle to judge what will best serve the Mount Pleasant market.
"We tend to rely upon the developers who are putting money into the project to understand the market," she said. "We do that with any development that comes to us, whether it's housing, a Panda Express or another Walgreens. We don't typically second guess what they think."
Part of the deal requires Labelle to construct a connector street from Mission Street to East Campus Drive, which runs through Central Michigan University's campus.
Labelle is working with at least one new business tenant, neither of which are Pho Viet or the antique store, said City Planner Jacob Kain.
With new business space being built, students are vocal about what they would like to see open.
"Dunkin Donuts," said Illinois freshman Mackenzie Bell. "We have them all over Illinois but I haven't seen any around here."
Beding sophomore Kole Hart said something to benefit all students would be the way to go.
"I would love to see a different bookstore here, like a place you could buy (textbooks), so Central doesn't have a monopoly on setting book prices," he said.
Regarding the new housing space, some students say living on Mission Street would be less-than-ideal. While the location is convenient, the centrally located street sees a lot of traffic.
"I absolutely hate driving on Mission and I will do everything in my power to avoid it, even if it means going five miles out of my way," said Warren junior Kalyn Hadacz. "I hate Mission and would never want to live on it. I think that's a bad idea."
Hadacz did note that traffic may not be a problem if living on Mission because most of Mount Pleasant's businesses are located on that street, making walking instead of driving more convenient. However, she said more housing in the city isn't necessary.
"If you lived on Mission, you wouldn't necessarily have to drive anywhere," she said. "The biggest disadvantage would be how busy it is there, how fast people drive and how people just don't pay attention."
Carissa Martin, sophomore, Flint:
"It's really unfortunate that the antique shop is going out of business because I feel like (the city) is starting to get rid of the smaller businesses around here. (Mount Pleasant) lacks a lot of retail clothing shops I noticed. There's only a JC Penny and a Rue 21, where are people supposed to get their clothes? There's not a clothing store in particular I'd want to see in (Mount Pleasant) but I feel like we need more stores like JC Penny, more chain stores."
Alyssa Templeton, sophomore, Flint:
"We need a mall of some sort, like something that would carry trendier clothing stores like American Eagle. I would be more (likely) to actually go into town and spend my money there if we had something like that."
Sarah Hartwig, senior, Traverse City:
"I think the city would benefit from adding more variety (of shops) in town. We need more variety of the stores and restaurants in town, rather than putting in something (redundant) like a third Taco Bell. It'd be nice to see some type of chain restaurant that we don't already have.
(in response to Sutter's coffee comment) "(A Barnes and Noble) would give students a place where they could study and hang out. There's a Starbucks on Pickard Street, but not many students go out that far because it's so far out of the way for us."
