East Lansing, Michigan

EAST LANS ING, MI CHIGAN partnered with the City to assist in developing marketing and outreach campaigns that have helped to inform the community on how to stay safe during the pandemic. Adam Cummins, East Lansing’s Community & Economic Development Administrator, and his team have had to get creative in developing business support programs and strategies and going after grant opportunities to help local businesses survive during the pandemic and recover afterward. The team used federal, state and local funds through the Downtown Development Authority and community crowdfunding to encourage customers to safely return to local businesses Programming for patrons included the six-week trial run of the Weekend Warrior program, which encouraged downtown customers to eat at newly established outdoor dining locations set up in the city’s public spaces in the winter and early spring, with the help of the East Lansing Rotary Club managing outdoor heaters. Meanwhile, the crowdfunded Place Project financed the outdoor dining offerings and other downtown programming. Additional incentives for businesses and restaurants to recover have and will soon include the implementation of a Downtown Underground Market in an under- utilized parking garage, the installation of parklet systems and the Curbside Pickup-Only Program, with designated parking spaces near businesses for picking up take-out food and online orders. Despite the COVID crisis, the community has come together to support each other and local businesses during a challenging and disheartening time. Fehrenbach attributes this to the humanity of the community, calling it “energizing.” He shares, “I think that, hopefully, some of these efforts will bear fruit, as we get past this pandemic and into brighter days ahead.”