I was visiting family in Albion and took a walk in the neighborhood near Victory and Reiger Parks. On either side of Allen Street, on the corner of East Erie, I noticed two orphaned driveway aprons. I see these all the time in my neighborhood in Lansing, serving as a marker of where a house has been torn down.

The one on the east side of Allen has crumbling concrete barriers in it, suggesting a concern that people would drive into the vacant lot, if not an actual occurrence. Across the way, its neighbor does not have barriers, but also points to a vacant lot. (Oddly, a Google street view from 2012 shows the west driveway with the concrete barriers and none on the east driveway.) The empty lots are both quite large.

The properties evidently faced Erie, based on the city records which show them to have Erie addresses. A crumbling, low brick wall edges the front of the eastern property, with a portal showing where the front entrance may have been placed.

According to the city records, the properties were both sold (cheaply) by Colchester Properties to Albion College in 2007. I’m not sure what the college’s interest was in them. Perhaps they wanted to prevent them from becoming (or remaining) eyesores, since they are close to campus.