March 19, 2024

Northport Busts Out

The county’s northernmost village went from bust to boom, but how?
Aug. 24, 2014


Sue Hanson literally wrote the book on Northport.

In 1999, her musical play about the village’s history was performed as part of the town’s sesquicentennial celebration.

Now she’s lived long enough to see the village take another historic turn – in the decade since Munson Healthcare shuttered the failing Leelanau Memorial Hospital in 2004, snuffing out 150 jobs, things are turning around.

New businesses have appeared up and down Waukazoo St., eager to serve the 500- plus people who live there year-round as well as waves of summer visitors.

"I think it’s kind of startling," said Hanson, a native and volunteer at the Northport Area Heritage Association museum. "All this growth has happened, of course, since we got the [$12 million] sewer system in."

THE POWER OF RETIREES

Without a sewer system, a project that bitterly divided the tiny village 10 years ago, such growth could not have happened.

Another factor? Well-off retirees who have not only made the village home, but have invested in its infrastructure.

"I think there were just a number of us who kind of said, "˜We’ve got to kick the old gal along,’" said Bill Collins, a retired automotive engineer who created the Pontiac GTO and was lead designer of the legendary DeLorean DMC-12.

Collins said he is surprised so much has happened so fast.

"It’s really encouraging to finally see things starting to happen," he said.

Collins said the turnaround took residents who love the town and were committed to making it better.

"There are so many of us who have retired up here and many of us were very active in our previous lives," said Clare Genarelly, a retired pharmaceutical company executive who owns Red Mullein art gallery.

Northport also needed a few people with money.

"You need to have a couple of people who are willing to come in and put some money in as a catalyst," Collins said. "A half a dozen people have done that."

ALL ALONG WAUKAZOO STREET

A walk through the village reveals what’s happened – there are new businesses everywhere.

A few years ago, everything was for sale.

Today, almost everything is new or under construction.

"Four years ago, five years ago, you could have bought this whole town for two million dollars," said Christopher McCann, a 34-year-old Northport native and manager of Northport Creek Golf Course.

New businesses include Tucker’s of Northport, a family restaurant and bowling alley, the Soggy Dollar restaurant, Northport Brewing Co., Northport Creek Golf Course, Red Mullein art gallery, Motovino wine store, and Lelu, a cafe and restaurant.

Soon-to-open are Set In Stone at the Old Depot, a wine and cigar store, and Tribune Ice Cream and Eatery, a breakfast, lunch and ice cream shop.

"Here in Northport, we’ve got these things you can only find in Traverse City; you can only find in a town of 20,000 people," McCann said.

Tucker’s, which will offer that rare thing for a Northern Michigan small town, year round entertainment, came from a conversation between Collins and a friend.

"Ben Walraven and I, a couple of years ago, we were sitting around having a cocktail around dinner and we said, "˜Hey, what can we do here?’" Collins said.

Collins said he and Walraven invested in the property and Walraven opened Tucker’s. Collins renovated two other downtown buildings to include commercial space and four apartments. He also built Northport Creek Golf Course, which he plans to donate to the village.

ACTIVE THROUGH TOUGH TIMES

A decade ago, when the hospital closed and the fight over the sewer was brewing, there was so little business the village didn’t even have a chamber of commerce.

Lisa Drummond, president of the Northport Omena Chamber of Commerce and operations manager of the Northport Community Arts Center, said the current chamber formed at a time when there wasn’t much going on.

"I guess keeping the faith is a big part of it," Drummond said. "When the chamber started out, it was pretty grim here. Businesses had left."

Gengarelly credits the chamber and the arts center for keeping events going in Northport through the downturn, events like the Friday night waterfront concerts and the Northport Dog Parade.

"They’ve held events right throughout the whole downturn, which kept people coming to Northport," Gengarelly said.

Also during the downturn, some residents lobbied and convinced the MSU Small Town Design Initiative to conduct a study of Northport.

That was followed by a study commissioned by the Leelanau Township Community Foundation called Future By Design.

A lot of what’s going on today is the result of those efforts, Collins said.

CHARTING A NEW (GOLF) COURSE

Northport Creek opened July 19. Northport’s last public golf course, Metheson Greens, became a nature preserve 14 years ago.

McCann said early results are promising – 160 people purchased memberships for the first season.

That a private citizen would create a golf course, make it self-sustaining and then give it as a gift to the village is also controversial in Northport.

"There are some people who are worried that it’s going to cost the village a couple hundred thousand dollars a year to operate the golf course," McCann said.

Collins said the course was developed to be as little a burden as possible – the village should be able to have a golf course and the economic activity that surrounds it and make a little money.

He plans to turn it over to the village by the end of the year. And he says what they are getting is a good deal – it will be a property without principal or interest owed, without taxes, and with no electricity costs because everything will be solar-powered. All it will take to run is the cost of fertilizer, seed, staff and solar panel maintenance.

"You can’t hardly lose anything and my hope and intention is that we can show that the village can end up picking up $50,000 a year," Collins said.

As for himself, Collins likes to sail but he doesn’t play golf.

"I tried it once and I didn’t like it," he said.

THE CHALLENGES AHEAD 

The whizzing golf carts are something you notice when you arrive in Northport. They are all over the place on a warm summer day.

"You’re not supposed to use them on state routes, which makes it a little bit dicey," Collins said.

Golf carts – a staple at southern retirement communities – are allowed on village streets per a local ordinance enacted a few years ago.

"I think that Northport is struggling to decide whether they’re going to be for tourists or be a retirement community," Collins said.

Collins said the two biggest problems facing the village are the need for overnight lodging and affordable housing for workers.

Those needs feed off of each other. Demand for vacation rentals reduces affordable housing.

In the last year or so, as Northport has become more appealing, houses have been snapped up by people who turn them into weekly rentals.

McCann said that’s happened in the past year to three properties near his house on Fifth St.

FROM THE SEWER

The wide-ranging investments would not have been possible without a sewer for new businesses to hook into. Prior to the sewer, which became operational in 2008, businesses and homes used septic tanks or septic fields.

"The way it smelled, I mean, apparently you wouldn’t want to have a restaurant with that odor," Gengarelly said.

The project divided the town and the sewer issue is an open wound today.

"I know some people who were really good friends and will not speak to each other anymore," McCann said.

Some residents still believe the $12 million system is too large and too expensive.

Others credit the project with turning the town around.

"Northport is full of naysayers who do not believe in the way the sewer was put in," Collins said. "And yet without that sewer, the marina would have closed. We never would have built Tucker’s and the bowling alley."

Some opposed the sewer on environmental grounds. Others opposed it because of how much residents would have to pay.

"The sad thing about this is eventually the sewer would have been mandated," Drummond said. "The people fighting it really caused it to be much more of an issue than it really should have been, in my opinion."

"˜TIME WILL TELL’

David Brigham opposed the sewer on environmental grounds. He was part of a group that filed a lawsuit that challenged treated wastewater discharge into Northport Creek.

That lawsuit settled last year. He said he is skeptical that what’s happening in Northport constitutes an economic boom.

"I think there’s some unusual investors out there now putting their hard-earned money into projects with good intentions," Brigham said. "I personally think they have deeper pockets than they do good business sense."

Brigham said he has lived in Northport for 42 years and the village has never been able to support two successful restaurants for an extended period of time. Today, Northport is filled with places to eat.

He wonders how all of the new businesses are going to survive the off-season.

"There’s going to be a giant sucking sound when it comes in a couple of weeks," Brigham said of Labor Day. "Time will tell.

"For somebody to tell me there’s an economic boom in Northport, they’ve got to show me the green."

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