The story of
Thomas M. Cooley Law School's main campus in Lansing, Michigan, is one of methodical, building-by-building investment in the city's urban core. Started by Justice Thomas Brennan in 1973, on the second floor of an old print shop on Grand Avenue in Downtown Lansing, the school's urban focus is commonly credited with helping feed the current revitalization of the city's core.
Don LeDuc joined Cooley in 1975, and took over from Brennan as the school's president in 2002.
At that point, the school had about 1,800 students in three buildings.
Today, the school has about 2,600 students in seven buildings, including the ongoing renovations in Downtown Lansing, and new campuses in Grand Rapids and Auburn Hills.
Capital Gains sat down with President LeDuc in the suite of stately offices in the Cooley Center building, opened in 2000, for a conversation about Downtown Lansing’s redevelopment past, present and future.
Here's a few of the highlights from that conversation:
Cooley’s Downtown PhilosophyThe decision to locate downtown “was actually tied into the decision to open the law school in the first place,” says LeDuc. “The guy that founded it was Justice Thomas E. Brennan, and he was still on the Court. His thought was, ‘You ought to have law school in the Capital City.’”
The school started “in a little second floor of a print shop over on Grand Avenue [near the
BoarsHead Theater]. We took that old building, [and] we rehabbed it. We were there for a year, and then bought the Temple Building at 217 S. Capital, which we bought from the Masons. That building used to be the sort of brunch-time, breakfast-time social center of Lansing. They had a big cafeteria on the first floor and served a couple thousand meals a day.”
Rehab and Reuse“Once we got into it we found that we liked it. As long as you can find a building that’s reasonably adaptable, why not?” says LeDuc of Cooley’s systematic reuse of old buildings in downtown.
(The list includes the school's law library—a former Penney’s department store; the Masonic Temple building; the original administration building on Grand; and the Cooley Center.)
“It’s got practical value; it gives you something," LeDuc says of reusing older buildings.
"The Temple Building looks like it’s been a law school since the Civil War. It really is an authentic building, so we had sort of instant tradition. Even though we were the newest law school, our building looked like we’d been there first.”
Housing the Talent“The average age of the starting student is 27 or so," says LeDuc, "so [Cooley's] bringing in a lot of young adults. You’ve got a lot of traffic coming into downtown that’s sort of educational-oriented. And we think that’s really contributed a lot.
“The effect in Lansing is that developers have caught on; it’s bringing in people for housing. So all the lofts—on Washington in particular—those have a lot of Cooley students in them. The Arbaugh Building that Rich Karp redid, that’s got a lot of Cooley students in it. Harry Hepler over in the old Motorwheel building has a quite a lot of Cooley Students. Pat Gillespie in Prudden next door to Harry has got quite a few.”
Marketing the CityThe Downtown culture is more than a benefit to the school's future lawyers, says LeDuc, “It’s what they want. It’s the selling point. . . . These aren’t kids. They’re not looking for dormitory life. The kids that are looking at law school have already been through college.
“For us, it’s basically, ‘You can get pretty much anything you want in a city, you can get here and you can walk to most of it.’
"We do market it as a city-university kind of thing.”
Attracting Out of StateRoughly 70 percent of Cooley’s students are from out-of-state, says LeDuc, “and what they like best about Lansing is how friendly it is. People talk to you on the street. People help you if you’re lost; people are nice to you in the stores.
“If you were raised in New York City, you think if people aren’t yelling at you they aren’t paying attention. That’s been an asset. All those stereotypes of the Midwest are true, and it plays very well with people from the East.”
Need for Shopping“The thing that hasn’t come back is the Downtown shopping,” says LeDuc. “But there’s probably never been more people living Downtown than now. And if the Capitol Club project comes off, and a couple of the other projects over by the stadium district, that’ll help Cooley. But I think what’s been going in behind it, Ballpark North and Marketplace, I think those are going to be very attractive to Cooley.
"Really, in terms of restaurants, places to live, entertainment venues, there’s a lot more now than there was. In terms of shopping and—other than bars—things to make people stick around Downtown, there isn’t as much as there was.”
“The people they’re trying to attract in these [new developments] aren’t going to necessarily want to hop in their cars and drive to one of the outlying malls. I think they’re going to want to have things they can get Downtown.
"We finally got a little bit of a drugstore back Downtown. They’re going to do well, because at night when people have got to pop out to get something, that will be very handy.”
Another Cultural VenueThe
Wharton Center in East Lansing is interested in seeing another cultural venue in Downtown Lansing, suggests LeDuc.
“They want to have a second venue available. They want to have people come to the Wharton and do a weekend. I don’t know how long it’s going to take, but there will be a cultural version of
Oldsmobile Park, someplace around.
"We do have the advantage in things like the
Michigan Museum and Historical Center. It’s probably the best kept secret in the State of Michigan. There’s probably not a museum of that quality anyplace—it’s a first class operation and you go over there and there’s still nobody there [except] bus loads of third graders. But the stuff they do over there is fantastic. And that’ll come.
“If you package it, so it’s a weekend, or a week. So it’s a vacation destination. . . . It’s on the edge, I think.”
President Don LeDuc served the U.S. Department of Justice as a special attorney in the criminal division before joining Cooley, where he became president in 2002. He is on the boards of the
Institute of Continuing Legal Education,
Capital Area United Way and the
Lansing Regional Chamber of Commerce.
Brad Garmon is the managing editor of Capital Gains.
Dave Trumpie is the managing photographer for Capital Gains. He is a freelance photographer and owner of Trumpie Photography.
Photos:
Cooley Law School President Don LeDuc
All Photographs © Dave Trumpie