It's the gateway to downtown East Lansing, but the abandoned buildings on the corner of Grand River Avenue and Abbot Road bring it down.
Which is why when a plan was approved to build apartments, condos, and a hotel, along with more parking, people in East Lansing were thrilled.
"The building's deteriorated during that time period too," explains East Lansing mayor Mark Meadows, "they were originally occupied and fully functioning and then all of a sudden they're empty, and sitting empty, year after year after year, looking worse and worse and worse."
That's what makes it so important to the city that something gets done. But right now the old developers still have the ten million dollar tax credit for the project, and in order for the project to move forward, the current developers say they need it.
To try and fix that, Tuesday's special city council meeting focused on changing the wording in the proposal to make the tax credit easier to give to the current developers.
That will be evaluated by the Michigan Strategic Fund on Sep. 26th but whether the tax credit gets transferred or not, mayor Meadows says demolition will start on October 7th.
"Hopefully there's going to be champagne for everybody cause we've been trying to get rid of those building's for 16 years," he says with a smile.
