Vickki Dozier

Lansing State Journal

LANSING - The Lansing Park Board will vote Wednesday on whether the Board of Water & Light should be allowed to build a new electrical substation on a portion of Scott Park and displace a 98-year-old home in the process.

BWL and city officials say the 4-acre portion of the park at the southwest corner of South Washington Avenue and West Malcolm X Street is the most cost-effective site for a new substation, and they maintain that the 4,600-square-foot house and adjacent sunken gardens have no particular historical significance, in part, because the house is not at its original location.

Preservationists disagree, and they have come out to oppose the proposed $26 million project.

"You’ve got a GM landmark, a state and city landmark, this sacred place and everybody's against it," said Dale Schrader, vice president of Preservation Lansing. "But the bureaucracy is in place. They’ve decided they’re going to do it. It's hard to stop."

The Scott House, which sits on the site proposed for the substation, would be moved or razed if the project goes forward, though fixtures would be salvaged in the latter case. The house is owned by the city.

The project also will relocate and reconfigure Scott Sunken Garden.

The resolution that will be taken up by the park board would change the use of the park for utility purposes. If it passes, the project will go back to the the city planning commission and, from there, to the city council.

If approved by the council, work would begin on the substation in late summer or early fall, according to the BWL.

"I just think it's tragic that they are trying to do this," said Judy Scott Teegardin, granddaughter of Richard and Gertrude Scott, who built a Georgian colonial-style house, the Scott Mansion, in 1905. The Scott House is not the same as the Scott Mansion.

"I definitely think it should be saved," Teegardin said. "The wall was built in 1930 and there used to be a home there. They razed that. The house was taken down, and turned into a sunken garden."

Richard Scott came to Lansing to join R.E. Olds in his experiments with the gasoline-driven engine and later became president of the REO Motor Car Co. He built the sunken gardens in 1930 and died in 1944. Gertrude Scott had the mansion razed in 1965. Scott family members sold the property to the city for a $1 quit claim deed in 1971.

Several years later, a home on Townsend Street had to be moved to accommodate construction of a parking lot for the General Motors Corp. Grand River Plant. The city acquired the home and moved it to Scott Park, where it was renamed Scott House. The Scott House is not designated as a historic home.

But the sunken garden remained. Teegardin feels it is definitely historical. A lot of the stone for the wall was brought in from Italy. It would be difficult, she said, to move all of that and replicate it.

"It's coming down to government and money," Teegardin said. "It would be more costly to go to Eckert than to put the substation where the garden is. That's what they're looking at, not what we wanted for the city. Also they are not thinking about the fact that we donated the land for the people of Lansing. If this is what they are going to do with it down the line, I think a lot of people will stop and decide if they really want to donate land if this is what they're going to do with it when they’re gone."

Stephen Serkaian, BWL's spokesperson, said the BWL considered eight locations and came to the conclusion that the most viable and economically feasible location for the substation was Scott Park.

"Because of its location to the underground circuits that emanate from the current Eckert substation, which is located next to Eckert power station and runs adjacent to Scott Park, this was one of our choices," Serkaian said. "This is a new substation that will serve the downtown area and tapping into those underground circuits at Scott Park is the most economically feasible of all the sites we looked at."

Of the eight sites considered, Serkaian said, the only one that remains a viable alternative is the current location of the Eckert substation.

But putting the project there would take the cost from $26 million to nearly $40 million, requiring a rate increase of about 3 percent, he said, and BWL isn't considering it seriously.

"You have to fortify the location because it's in a 100-year floodplain," Serkaian said. "Additionally, we would have to replace the underground duct banks through which the circuits go beneath the railroad tracks. All of that is extremely costly."

What's more, he said, it would "remove the Eckert power station from any future economic development projects similar to the Accident Fund development of the Ottawa Power Station. Because, it would extend the life of Eckert beyond 2020."

Preservationists oppose REO Town substation plan

The Garden Club of Greater Lansing has maintained the Scott Sunken Garden for more than 30 years, with minimal assistance from or cost to the city.

The club was shocked to learn about plans in process for more than a year to build a BWL substation on the site of the Garden, Jenny Bond, publicity chair of the Garden Club, wrote in an email.

On Monday, the group sent a statement to local officials strongly recommending that the garden, "a Lansing historic gem," be preserved in its current location. The club voted to continue to maintain Scott Sunken Garden if it remains in its current site. The group has also voted to establish an endowment in perpetuity to maintain Scott Sunken Garden if it remains where it is.

Serkaian says the BWL is going to relocate and reconstruct the garden on the Scott Park site.

"It's not taking the current garden brick by brick and reassembling it," he said, "but we will be recreating it in effect, making it Americans With Disabilities Act compliant, creating greater access to the garden than currently existed and creating synergy for visitors with the adjacent Cooley Gardens."

BWL is not insensitive to those that want to preserve the house, Serkaian said. That is why they've committed up to $100,000 to move it to a different location should a qualified buyer come forward and want to purchase it from the city. The idea for BWL to pay to move the Scott House came from Preservation Lansing and BWL accepted.

Nor is the BWL insensitive to those who want to preserve the current location of the sunken garden, he said.

"That is why we’ve been working with members of the Garden Club of Greater Lansing, to not only relocate it to a different location in the park but to preserve and transplant the perennials, and trees to the new location," Serkaian said.

The substation walls could be between 20 and 25 feet tall, but could be as low as 10 feet. No final decision has been made because the BWL is still working with the community on the design of the walls, he said. The actual substation equipment could be as high as 50 feet tall.

Which, to Schrader, sounds horrible.

"All the historic stuff aside, consider what we're putting there," he said. "These are anywhere between 20 foot and above walls from what I've heard. And a metal frame. You know what a substation looks like. It's 50 feet tall. These numbers are from BWL themselves. It's going to actually be above the wall, and you'll see it. It's just awful. The land inside that park, inside the walls, it's just cut off from the public forever."

Contact Vickki Dozier at (517) 267-1342 or vdozier@lsj.com.

Lansing Park Board meeting

The Lansing Park Board will meet at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Foster Community Center, 200 N. Foster.