What’s Happening in Greilickville?

Turns Out...A Lot.

April 1, 2016

As traffic volume nears a level suggesting M-22 become a five-lane highway, township planners hope to turn the village into a tourist destination with small-town appeal.

Here are two visions for Greilickville’s future. M-22 could be rerouted around the business district, along the TART Trail corridor, and the highway’s current location could become a low-speed city street. Proponents believe this would spur development of resorts, lakefront restaurants and a village center, which would make Greilickville a destination.

A different idea pushes the other extreme; the existing highway could be enlarged to five lanes so traffic could pass through faster and without backups.

There is no easy solution to the woes Elmwood Township faces thanks to its location at the bottleneck into, and out of, Leelanau County. Officials and residents have been talking a lot about the future of M-22 because traffic regularly backs up farther than 1 mile from the M-72 intersection in the summertime. Each of those radical visions for the future of M-22 would come with serious consequences.

To reroute M-22 would cost $10 to $20 million, according to a preliminary township traffic study that raises the concept; the final traffic study has not been completed. Also, rerouting M-22 would mean filling a massive amount of wetlands. Township planner Sara Kopriva said an M-22 bypass hasn’t even been discussed.

"That option is very, very new and it hasn’t been explored," she said.

Widening M-22 would also be unpopular. It would mean the highway would encroach onto businesses and parks that are already close to the road and it could make pedestrian crossings to reach beaches and parks even more perilous.

At a March meeting, to preview the traffic study they commissioned, officials received bad news about an interim measure they hoped to take. It was hoped that Grandview Road could be rerouted south through the Brewery Creek property to create a signaled intersection at the township marina entrance, offering a chance to create a break in traffic and maybe spur a town center.

Traffic consultants nixed that possibility; they determined the Michigan Department of Transportation would not approve a signal at that location because it would make traffic on M-22 worse.

Elmwood Township Planning Commission Chairman Kim Pontius said the results of the study were disappointing; M-22 has become dangerous for pedestrians and vehicles making left turns out of the marina.

"It’s just a matter of time before something really horrible happens. People drive way too fast through that corridor," he said. "I think the study probably focused on traffic flow and traffic movement, and not on the safety concerns."

More traffic volume on M-22 is almost certain to eventually dictate the highway be five lanes, the research found. John Iacoangeli, principal at Beckett and Raeder, a consultant hired by the township to work on the study, urged officials to avoid letting that happen.

"The one thing that we don’t want to do is increase the number of lanes on the corridor because, if we do that, then unfortunately, you’re not going to have a waterfront district any more," he said at the March meeting.

The study concluded that the highway works alright today, most of the time, but in a decade, if Leelanau grows as projected, M-22 in Greilickville will reach failure-level traffic volume, said traffic expert Pete LaMorie of Progressive AE of Grand Rapids.

The sorry news about the hoped-for stoplight and the dim projections for the future have officials looking for smaller ways to improve M-22.

What can be done? For one thing, more businesses could be connected by a service drive west of M-22. That would mean fewer cars pulling onto and off the highway. The township could also work to reduce the number of driveways, which make traffic chaotic and dangerous for pedestrians. The study also recommends constructing several raised islands in the median to make safe crosswalks. The study rules out pedestrian bridges or tunnels because they tend to go unused.

Even the interim measures are not easy solutions. Reducing curb cuts and freeing up places for pedestrians to cross will take time, LaMorie said at the meeting. For existing businesses, the township can’t just close their access; they've got to wait for the property owner to ask permission for something else so they can make closing an access point a condition of achieving that other thing.

"That can take years and years to actually implement, but you’ve got to start somewhere," LaMorie said.

Nonetheless, Iacoangeli said the best way forward is to concentrate on small improvements.

"If the road goes to total saturation, you’re going to have an economic problem and, if it goes to five lanes, it’s even going to be a worse issue, so we’re kind of stuck, really," he said.

Iacoangeli told Elmwood residents to look to Acme Township to see how a fivelane highway separates people from beach and park access.

MDOT’s representative at the meeting, Patty O’Donnell, said the township has a stark choice between five lanes or traffic backups.

"It’s a conundrum that’s been going on for years with the increase of tourism," she said. "If the community doesn’t want five lanes, then the community has to accept that you’re going to have congestion."

Pontius doesn’t believe a five-lane solution will happen. He doesn’t think M-22 will be rerouted, either.

"That’s probably the tragic part of all of this. We know we have a problem there," he said. "Everybody will talk about how there’s no money to do it and it just won’t happen."

UNCERTAINTY AT BREWERY CREEK

In 2002, developers envisioned the, now mostly vacant, Brewery Creek property on the west side of M-22 would become a village center, and then those plans went bankrupt. In 2012, Elmwood Township purchased the property and it was once again hoped that those 15 acres could become the heart of a new and improved Greilickville.

That plan hinged on winning permission to reroute Grandview Road to make a signaled intersection at the township marina entrance. Now that it appears the state will not green light that plan, it’s unclear what will happen at the long-stalled development site.

"The township hasn’t discussed what the future is for the property because we haven't gotten he final results from that traffic study," said Kopriva.

In the meantime, Brewery Creek is used for overflow parking for the marina. That may be all it will be for a while.

Pontius said he doesn’t know what will happen with the property. Supervisor Jack Kelly is not running for reelection and Pontius said Kelly has a vision of turning that property into a town center. He wonders whether the next supervisor will feel the same way.

"You’re not going to get someone who is as committed and invested in the community as Jack Kelly," Pontius said.

AFFORDABLE HOUSING NOT PLANNED

As the ink dries on Elmwood Township’s new zoning ordinance, which hasn’t yet been approved by the township board, something you won’t find is promotion of affordable housing.

Township resident and Republican county commission candidate Tony Ansorge thinks that’s a lost opportunity.

"They did not change anything as far as making things easier for people to put in affordable housing," Ansorge said. "I was very disappointed. Study after study after study has said there is a problem in this area, the Traverse City area."

Pontius said officials had hoped to facilitate affordable housing like accessory dwelling units (ADUs) in the zoning ordinance, but a survey showed that residents didn’t want it.

"It came back overwhelmingly that people in Elmwood Township were not in favor of ADUs; they were not in favor of building affordable housing," Pontius said.

PRIME REAL ESTATE, OLD OIL TANKS

Greilickville’s gradual transformation from hub of industry to hub of tourism took a big step forward in 2012 when Marathon Oil announced the closure of its fuel depot on the West Bay shore.

Those eight drums sit on a lot that’s been vacant ever since, prime development property that’s gone untouched because, before anything can happen there, decades-old contamination must be remediated.

"The idea was that this property would be cleaned up and it would be free of contamination and then it would be put on the market and sold," said Greg Reisig, board chair of the Northern Michigan Environmental Action Council. "They’re basically trying to contain them. Why aren’t they trying to remediate them?" Marathon Petroleum Corp. has owned the site since 1999 and, although the oil spills that caused the contamination predate their ownership, Marathon is responsible for remediation of the site.

"We are working with the site’s previous owner to remediate the property," said Marathon spokesman Brandon Daniels in an email. "We have no plans to announce at this time."

Right now, it doesn’t appear that the historic contamination poses an immediate threat to the bay, though Watershed Center Baykeeper John Nelson said it’s important to keep an eye on it.

"We are always concerned," he said. "There are monitoring wells on the east side; to my knowledge, there is nothing crossing M-22 right now."

"It’s got a lot of possibilities to use it for something much more than a tank farm," said Pontius, who is also executive vice president of the Traverse Area Association of Realtors. "That could be a wonderful property for a resort, especially one that might be tied to a small cruise line," because the property has a deep-water port.

WHAT’S WITH ALL THAT DIRT?

A big pile of dirt seemed to appear over Greilickville last summer. That housing development, called the Moorings, is actually in Traverse City. A companion development, Leelanau Flats, is in Elmwood Township and has taken longer to get approvals.

The cleared trees and bulldozed land irked a lot of observers. "It’s been a huge call for action at the Watershed Center; we get calls about that site all the time," attorney T.J. Andrews said. "Last summer, we were getting calls on a daily basis about what was happening out there."

City Planning Director Russ Soyring said there is no ordinance in Traverse City to prevent a landowner from cutting down trees, something the planning commission has considered addressing, but so far has balked at due to property rights concerns.

Developer Bob Brick said the removed trees were mostly either dead or dying ash trees or invasive species, and that thousands of trees will be planted as the site is developed. The development will include 91 homes and 58 condo units.

Brick said construction of homes at the Moorings should begin in May and construction of four-unit condo buildings at Leelanau Flats should begin in August.

FROM COAL DOCK TO PUBLIC PIER

The old coal dock is looking for a new name. "Coal dock" isn’t really accurate; it’s actually an artificial jetty of land that juts into the bay like a square spoon. It has grass growing on top of it like a mini Open Space and it’s about to become the region’s newest park.

"There will be a much more attractive name than "˜the old coal docks,’" said Becky Ewing, associate director of Rotary Charities, which is purchasing the property from Traverse City Light & Power.

Rotary is awaiting results of an environmental assessment before they close on the deal, but they’re confident enough that they’ve scheduled an open house for the afternoon of June 7.

Before that can happen, they need to install life rings and steps out of the water.

They need to remove the barbed wire and install a gate so the park can close at dusk. Later, they hope to build a footbridge over an adjacent creek to connect the property to the township park.

The coal dock renovation is just the first part of what’s planned as a years-long reimagining of the Discovery Center campus, which sits across M-22 on land also owned by Rotary Charities. The Discovery Center includes a group of nonprofits that share a concern for water quality: the Watershed Center Grand Traverse Bay, the Maritime Heritage Alliance, the Great Lakes Children’s Museum, Traverse Area Community Sailing and Inland Seas Education Association.

Watershed Center’s Executive Director Christine Crissman hopes all of the organizations can someday share one large structure that will enable them to pool resources, creating a public attraction dedicated to the health of the Great Lakes.

"There’s so much potential for this to be a really great shared space," she said. One of the organizations’ big challenges is M-22, because it is so dangerous to cross.

During the Rotary open house, for example, visitors will park on the west side of the highway and take a bus across M-22.

"Right now, anything that happens on the other side of the street is supposed to have parking on that side of the street or we’re supposed to shuttle people over," Crissman said.

RAY OF SUNSHINE AT LEELANAU STUDIOS

Something is happening at a once-shuttered TCAPS school on Greilickville’s north end. The Grand Traverse Regional Arts Campus, otherwise known as the Leelanau Studios, opened quietly last year at the former Norris Elementary School that sits at the intersection of M-22 and Cherry Bend Road.

When photographer John Robert Williams learned a gymnasium was available, he vacated the State Street studio in Traverse City where he’d been for 31 years and moved in. He likes how a collective of artists, fitness instructors and small business people have come together in the 40,000-square-foot building.

There is a half-mile recreational trail that winds along Cedar Creek, outlining the 8-acre property, as well as art from the Traverse City Art Banner project displayed on the exterior walls and a sculpture garden planned for the former playground.

"There are lots of amazing things happening and lots of big plans. It’s a great community and it’s kind of like a little collective – everybody has responsibilities," Williams said. "It’s a brilliant reuse of this space, considering it was about ready to be torn down."

Artist Royce Deans has turned a classroom into a gallery, studio and art school. Deans said there is an energy to the Leelanau Studios that’s exciting and, yet, most people don’t know even know what it is yet.

"I can’t believe how many people pop in to say, "˜I don’t know what’s going on here,’" Deans said.

Leelanau Studios is open to the public and hosts open houses the third Friday evening of every month.