Traverse City Record-Eagle

Archive: Friday

November 28, 2008

Board OKs Copper Ridge parking deck

BY BRIAN McGILLIVARY

Editor's Note

This article first appeared as breaking news online the night of November 26.

TRAVERSE CITY -- Munson Medical Center will get a $6 million taxpayer funded parking deck in the Copper Ridge development after the Grand Traverse County Board voted 8 -1 on Thanksgiving Eve in favor of the project.

The deck would serve a new $40 million cancer treatment center Munson would like to build at Copper Ridge in Garfield Township. Munson will build and operate the deck. Grand Traverse County’s Brownfield Redevelopment Authority will then intercept 99 percent of the local property taxes paid by Copper Ridge for up to 14 years to reimburse Munson.

The meeting held at the small Whitewater Township hall was packed with close to 100 hot and eventually sweaty people. Those with ties to Munson or private business interests at Copper Ridge spoke in favor of the project while others wanted to see the $6 million flow to schools, BATA, libraries, the commission on aging and local government.

County commissioners, however, were more focused on the cancer center than the cost to taxpayers.

"It’s such a small amount it’s not worth arguing about," said commissioner Larry Inman Commissioner Christine Maxbauer was the lone no vote.

Text Only