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Residents and engineer urge Lansing council to lift demolition order for MLK Boulevard homes
Summary
Residents, family members and the project’s structural engineer urged the Lansing City Council to remove an order to make safe or demolish (MSD) for homes at 108–110 South Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., saying substantial interior work and $80,000 in investment demonstrate the buildings’ safety. Council did not take a final vote on the MSD at the meeting.
Alisa Flowers, who identified herself as the property owner and a trained designer, told the Lansing City Council she has invested more than $80,000 repairing the interior of 108–110 South Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. and asked the council not to demolish the homes.
"108110MLK will take a place where safety will be a place where safety, sustainability, healing, creativity, and community thrive together," Flowers said, describing the project as a personal and neighborhood-driven restoration.
Family members and neighbors lined up to support Flowers’s plea. Her daughter Danielle Flowers said visiting the renovated interior shows the work is far along and asked the council to "give her grace" and allow the family to finish the project. Amani Flowers framed the issue as preserving a vision and argued reversing the MSD is about more than a building: "It's about saving a vision." (Speakers used the spelling "Alisa" when speaking.)
James Carter, the project’s engineering manager, told the council he spent roughly 60 days assessing structural deficiencies and overseeing repairs. "We came up with 10 foundation supports that need to go into the building…90% of our design that we came up with for that property has been done," Carter said, and he urged code enforcement to inspect the interior with an engineer who knows structural safety. "I guarantee they will tell you the building is structurally sound," he said.
Other residents — including Kenneth Fuentes, Carlos Speed, Diane Bransford and Jacob Nicholas — urged the council to reverse the MSD, stressing the home’s community value and the owner’s progress on repairs. Several speakers said landlord properties should face stricter enforcement than owner-occupied homes and proposed a more graduated system of code tags instead of a single red-tag category.
Council did not announce an immediate decision to reverse the MSD during the meeting. Earlier in the agenda the council moved one item to the Nov. 10 meeting after staff said certain financial information was not yet provided to the body, which speakers and council members referenced as context for postponement of some items.
Next steps: speakers asked the council to instruct code enforcement to re-inspect the property with qualified structural staff and to consider rescinding the MSD; no formal motion to rescind was recorded in the Oct. 27 meeting minutes.
Votes or formal action referenced: the consent agenda and multiple show-cause hearings were approved; there was no recorded council vote on removing the MSD for 108–110 S. MLK during this meeting.
