March 28, 2024

Busy City

April 22, 2016

Traverse City is busy. There are streets to be realigned and redesigned, sidewalks to warm, tall buildings to erect and parks to be fixed. Sort of.

A redesign study of Division Street from 14th Street to Grandview Parkway with goals to improve safety, slow traffic, reduce congestion and become more pedestrian friendly is complete (if you’re wondering how slowing traffic will reduce congestion and where all those pedestrians are, you’re not alone).

There was much analysis, many public meetings with plenty of input and all manner of ideas. It took two years and cost $500,000.

Whether you loved or hated the concepts matters little; there will be no redesign of Division Street any time soon. MDOT has no budget for the project and it isn’t considered a priority, facts that were little publicized during all the ballyhooed meetings.

But at least there’s the Garland Street realignment and redesign, a key feature of the redevelopment of the Warehouse District. Almost.

Turns out the city owned power company is not willing to kick in nearly as much as the city would like. You’d think that would have been a duck already aligned but, instead, it’s another delay after months of delays while land deals were being resolved.

Thank goodness the more costly faux cobblestone surface is still in play. Because TC’s Warehouse District is... hmm... an old English village?

We’ve yet to begin the 8th Street redesign but already we’re hearing it needs to be pedestrian and bicycle friendly with plenty of slowed, decongested traffic.

Hopefully we will still have a road or two the purpose and priority of which are to move traffic east-west and north-south. Sometimes that’s what roads are for.

The entire tall building project on Front Street imploded when Judge Phillip Rodgers told the city they hadn’t adequately crossed all their t’s or dotted their i’s when approving a special use permit for the nine-story, city block-sized monolith.

City commissioners went into closed-door session with the city attorney to weigh their options. When they emerged they said they had two: appealing the ruling or doing nothing. They chose to do nothing, letting Rodger’s decision stand and hoping, one assumes, the developers will appeal the ruling.

It was peculiar the city apparently did not consider -- or at least didn’t publicly say they considered -- the most obvious option: providing the documentation and analyses the judge said needed to be completed.

There was also a glitch in plans to heat the sidewalk on the north side of Front Street between Park and Cass. It’s the idea of the Film Festival so they can put handprints of famous people in the pavement in front of the State Theatre. Property owners on the block will receive a special assessment so they can pay for half the project. Not so fast.

Turns out it would take twice as long (yes, the sidewalk would be torn up for at least two months) and cost more than 30 percent more than anticipated. All so Madonna’s handprints won’t crack in the winter. But, if ever completed, at whatever cost, it will be a welcoming place for our winter homeless population.

We did achieve a settlement with the folks at least partly responsible for the Clinch Park redesign and construction, including the illfated and now infamous splash pad. We got about half of what it will cost to fix it. Yippee.

At least we might get a Costco. Maybe.

Costco is a big box warehouse store, and a good one. Regularly selected as one of the 10 best companies to work for, they start employees way above minimum wage with benefits, and the company makes significant contributions -- financially and otherwise -- to the communities in which they operate.

They intend to lease land from Cherry Capital Airport, paying $3.3 million over the 20- year agreement, and will provide as many as 200 new jobs. They will create landscaping between their parking lot and South Airport Road and have agreed to create roof facades that will conceal the visual blight of their rooftop mechanical systems.

It’s hard to imagine a much better addition to the city. Of course, three city commissioners have reservations. One doesn’t like a parking lot in front of the building, there are concerns about big box stores’ propensity for appealing their property tax assessments (Michigan law allows them to do so) and, well, we’d better think about it.

The vacant land currently generates no lease or property tax income, and one does wonder why a store in that location, adjacent to the airport, would need to follow set-back rules developed for downtown.

Let’s assume it’s all been just a run of bad luck rather than unfortunate planning, inadequate homework, unnecessary delays, poorly anticipated expenses and odd decision-making.

After all, it’s spring, the season of hope. Anything is possible.

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