After deferring lease payments in 2012, 20, the township and DDA formed a partnership with Eyde and Eastwood and divided ownership of The Heights.Those will grow to more than $5 million a year in the future. Landlord Mike Eyde and his Eastwood LLC are due more than $242 million with annual payments of about $1 million. When the DDA couldn’t pay the 99-year lease for the private land upon which The Heights is built, the lease was rewritten to make the township, with its broad taxing authority, the responsible tenant.When cash from the first bond sale wasn’t enough to finish the project, the DDA sold $7.5 million in high-risk, high-interest junk bonds and the township pledged funds to make the payments if needed.The first bond sale put the township over the state debt limit, preventing it from borrowing again for years. The township and its DDA both sold bonds to fund the project - nearly $30 million total - committing the township to make bond payments if income from The Heights was insufficient.Revenue shortfalls pushed the township to seek a bailout from a wealthy landowner and to announce plans to sell the project within four years. The Heights’ 88,000 square feet of commercial space has never achieved even 30% occupancy.

Instead, a Lansing State Journal investigation reveals the project has added more than $270 million in long-term debts and obligations to the already struggling township. The township’s Downtown Development Authority conceived The Heights at Eastwood amid recession and launched the project with assurances tenant rents would more than cover its expenses. – North of Eastwood Towne Center and NCG’s 19-screen cinema, “For Lease” signs and vacant storefronts only hint at the financial miscalculations burdening Lansing Township.

A township tale set hight