I had business at the Meridian Mall today, so I thought I would do my first Meridian Township stamp, and get one in front of the mall. To that end I started look on Google Street View, which I sometimes do to scout a spot before walking there. It’s often possible to see stamps and even sometimes possible to read them. I was disappointed that it didn’t look like there were any stamps to be found near the front entrance. That got me wondering whether Meridian Township has the same rule about sidewalk stamping as the city of Lansing – that is, that sidewalks must be stamped with the name of the contractor and the date. I went to the Meridian Township code, but there it only said that sidewalks must be constructed according to the specifications of the Director of Public Works and Engineering. I dug around a little on the Meridian Township Web site until I found those specifications. Regarding stamping, they state:

At each end of the pour, or at least every 80’, the sidewalk/pathway must be imprinted with the contractor’s name and date stamp. The letters of the stamp shall be 1 1⁄2” high.

Meridian Township Department of Public Works

I’m surprised it specifies an exact height for the letters instead of “at least” an inch and a half as it says in Lansing’s code. It is also more specific about how frequent the stamps should be. Nevertheless, they seem infrequent in the vicinity of the mall.

Sidewalks themselves get short shrift around the mall, probably unsurprisingly, but irritatingly nonetheless. I set out to walk the outside edge of the mall and found that a sidewalk at the edge of the building exists only intermittently, mostly around the doors. The longest unbroken stretch of sidewalk is around the Macy’s wing. None of it is stamped. There is no sidewalk at all around the mall’s perimeter road. I only found one place where the public sidewalk even offers a pedestrian entrance to the mall, and it’s on the Marsh Road side rather than near the front entrance on Grand River. Having one lonely access path is so inadequate that it hardly seems worth having any at all. It makes me wonder if the township required them to have pedestrian access when they built the mall so they complied in the stingiest manner possible.

It’s near that access sidewalk that I found a stamp. I had spotted it on Google Street View so I knew it was there, and a couple more like it, though those were hidden by snow at the moment. The contractor is probably H & C Earthworks and Construction of Bath Township, about which I can’t find much information.