In the heart of one of Lansing’s most booming districts, one decaying building hovers like a ghost.
A look over the boarded-up or missing windows of the former Frank Preuss & Son Star Market at 308 Cesar E. Chavez Ave. shows the brick facade is about all that’s left. Decades of exposure to the elements have left the building without even a floor.
The building is one of 44 listed on the 1976 application that earned the North Lansing Historic Commercial District, now known as Old Town, its spot on the National Register of Historic Places. That helps with tax incentives but carries no protections against demolition by neglect or otherwise — as Lansing learned when the historic Glaister House came down earlier this year.
Many mistakenly believe that Old Town is a designated local historic district…