BY ART BUKOWSKI
abukowski@record-eagle.com
TRAVERSE CITY —
An open-for-business parking deck is a wonderful thing for Mike Deering.
Deering owns Maxbauer Specialty Meat Market in Traverse City's Old Town District. A four-level parking deck that broke ground behind his shop in October is set to open today, nearly two months ahead of schedule.
Business was down as much as 20 percent during construction, Deering said, in large part because of parking-related issues and congestion. But now that's over, and he thinks the deck looks great.
"It's a beautiful deck," he said. "And a lot of our downstate customers tell us it's a beautiful deck."
The publicly funded $7.9 million, 522-space deck initially was expected to open in mid-September. When Colasanti Construction Services recently let the city know they'd likely finish in mid-August, city officials sought to make sure the deck would be done in time for the Traverse City Film Festival.
"We related to them that the film festival would really benefit from the use of the deck, and they kicked it into high gear," Community Development Director Bryan Crough said.
The first floor is set to open today, and the city hopes to have the rest of deck open by week's end.
Crough expects the deck to come in under budget when all the numbers are finalized.
City officials agreed to build the deck when Hagerty Insurance Agency committed to build an expansion and add up to 226 new jobs. Hagerty is headquartered nearby at the intersection of Cass and Lake Streets, and the deck will be used heavily by its employees.
Hagerty recently announced plans to double the size of its expansion. The company expects to break ground early next year on a 44,000-square foot building just west of its current complex.
The building was projected to be only 22,000 square feet when the company entered into a development agreement with the city in October 2008.
Mayor Chris Bzdok is thrilled the project was completed ahead of time, is expected to be under budget and will result in additional jobs, among other things.
"The Old Town deck represents a success story in the city," he said.
