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E. Michigan Ave., Granger Construction, 2004

As the news broke yesterday evening that 126-year-old Sparrow Hospital will be acquired by the University of Michigan’s health system, I decided to mark the end of an era by walking to Sparrow and recording a sidewalk stamp. It’s one I first noticed a long time ago and kept putting on the back burner and then eventually forgot about. I checked and re-checked my spreadsheet (yes, I have a spreadsheet), since I was having trouble believing I had never done it. It’s in front of the Sparrow Professional Building on East Michigan Avenue, which is across the street from the main Sparrow building, connected to it by a skywalk. The new sidewalk likely dates from a big expansion project that Sparrow started in 2003.

Granger Construction is based on Aurelius Road on the south side of Lansing and health care construction is one of their areas of expertise. Their Web site disappointingly does not include a company history.

The stamp is at the bottom of this image. Its twin is just before the crosswalk.
Sparrow has had this Christmas decoration on its roof every year as long as I’ve lived in town. It’s gotten more colorful, though, and I assume was fitted with LEDs at some point.
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Forgotten Passage, Mt. Pleasant

Here is one last entry from a recent walk in Mount Pleasant. I was walking around the subdivision southwest of Central Michigan University when I saw an unexplained curb cut. There are no sidewalks here, so it looks like a driveway apron, but perhaps narrower. I’m fascinated by quasi-secret or neglected passages, so I took photos of it, but forgot to note where it was located. It was somewhere around Glen or Highland or Crescent Street, I think.

The autumn leaf cover made it hard to see much, but it appeared not to have been used in a long time, if ever. I would have thought it was just a spot where they put in a cut for possible future development that didn’t happen, except that it was just possible to make out a couple of long wooden beams like railroad ties that might have originally served as edging to a path. The path – if it is one – has no obvious place to go and just disappears in the woods.

The closest house is this aggressively modern one to the right, though they don’t have any obvious connection to each other.

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City of Williamston Sidewalk Code

It’s been a terribly busy week for me – this is my crunch time at work – so you’ll forgive me, I hope, as I bring you a rather uneventful update. As part of my recent series exploring metro Lansing sidewalk ordinances, I tried checking out Williamston’s. The city has been showing up in TV ads a lot as I’ve been watching Christmas special broadcasts. There are a lot of little boutiques in its small downtown, so it advertises a lot during the holiday shopping season.

Sadly, Williamston’s code contains nothing about sidewalk stamps, though it does say that sidewalks shall be constructed “in accordance with the specifications stated in the city’s municipal standards, and shall guarantee such construction against defective workmanship, material or construction for three years from the time such sidewalk is constructed.” A specific warranty period hasn’t been mentioned in any other code I’ve looked at. Of course, it would be easier to track down the contractor responsible for a bum walk if they had to leave their name on it. (If there’s anything relevant in the city’s municipal standards, I don’t know, as those don’t appear to be online.)

I also notice that Williamston’s ordinance on sidewalk maintenance specifies that not only the sidewalk itself must be clear of obstructions, but a window of one foot on either side of it (provided there isn’t a building there) and eight feet above it must remain clear. As someone who has repeatedly been bonked on the head by low tree limbs while walking at night, I approve. There are also quite a lot of places in my neighborhood where property owners have allowed weed trees and shrubs to encroach from the sides, which has to be even more bothersome to people in wheelchairs.

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S. Washington St., Mt. Pleasant, Lakeshore Construction, 2019

This one is from one of my walks near my office in Mount Pleasant. It’s in front of the North Art Studio, a quite distinctive-looking building, on the South Washington Street side of the building. Both sides of the corner here at Preston and Washington has some new sidewalk. I have run into Lakeshore Construction stamps before, on other works around work. There aren’t many stamps around Mount Pleasant, so I’ll take what I can get.

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Bath Township Sidewalk Code

Today’s entry in my series surveying local municipalities’ sidewalk ordinances is Bath Township. Yes, for non-local readers, it is that Bath Township, which lies just northeast of Lansing. You will not (or at least should not) be surprised to learn it is a charter township, like almost all of the townships surrounding Lansing and East Lansing. I found their sidewalk construction code, and I’m sorry to say that it says nothing about stamping the sidewalk with a contractor’s name. It also appeared extremely similar to other local sidewalk construction codes that I have covered recently, leading me to believe they have been adapted from a standard building code.

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DeWitt Township Sidewalk Code

I was surprised, but probably shouldn’t have been, to learn that DeWitt Township is actually a Charter Township. I knew that Delta and Meridian were charter townships, but didn’t know about DeWitt or, for that matter, Delhi. In Michigan, incorporating as a charter township gives a township some protection against being annexed. It’s almost always motivated by not wanting to pay city taxes. There is also a city of DeWitt, which is surrounded by the charter township but is independent of it. I’ll probably dig up the city of DeWitt’s sidewalk code in a later post.

Anyway, this is the latest in my series of posts on metro Lansing municipalities’ sidewalk stamp ordinances (or lack thereof). I don’t have much to say this time, but I found the DeWitt Township sidewalk construction code and I’m sorry to report that it does not contain anything about stamping the sidewalk with the contractor’s name.

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Delhi Township Sidewalk Code

Next up on my survey of metro Lansing sidewalk marking codes is Delhi Charter Township, best known as the home of the unincorporated community of Holt. Delhi has a pretty good chunk of code devoted to sidewalk maintenance standards, despite the fact that, according to the Township’s building information brochure, no permit is required to construct a sidewalk. Delhi also has a Complete Streets ordinance that requires sidewalks to be installed, when feasible (however that is determined), whenever there is a road construction project. Alas, Delhi Township’s sidewalk construction ordinances do not require any contractor stamps.

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East Lansing Sidewalk Code

Let’s continue looking at area sidewalk marking requirements. Today I found East Lansing’s requirements for sidewalk construction, and I am happy to report that it contains this:

The contractor must stamp the concrete with the contractor name and current year at the limits of the pour, using a professionally manufactured/fabricated stamp ONLY. No other methods will be allowed.

This is the first one I’ve found that is particular about the nature of the stamp. Apparently East Lansing didn’t want any of these kinds of shenanigans.

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Delta Township Sidewalk Code

Since I have no sidewalk markings to show today, I thought I would start looking around at the various municipalities around Lansing and see which of them have sidewalk marking rules. I know already that Lansing Township does, even though it seems hardly enforced. Meridian Township also does, but to the best of my determination, Alaiedon Township does not. I went looking on Delta Township’s Web site, and found the Delta Township Concrete Construction Standards. There is nothing in here about markings, so I guess Delta Township does not require sidewalk stamps. Boo! Boo, I say!