TRAVERSE CITY -- Snow and freezing temperatures are blowing into Traverse City, but some are thinking about sunny beaches, vibrant shoreline trails and a fishing pier.
Traverse City commissioners unanimously approved implementation steps for the city's bayfront plan this week. It includes putting the city's Parks and Recreation Commission at the helm, plans to hire an engineering firm and ways to seek grant funding to overhaul a two-mile swath along West Grand Traverse Bay.
Residents in the city's Slabtown neighborhood -- immediately adjacent to West End Beach -- want to see improvements at the bayfront, particularly additional safe crossings at busy Grandview Parkway, said Mike Gaines, neighborhood vice president.
"It's like Russian roulette trying to cross the parkway," Gaines said.
Additional crosswalks are among conceptual plans for the bayfront, from M-72 stretching east past Clinch Park to the Traverse City Senior Center, said Russell Soyring, city planning director.
"I think we have the potential for it to be an even more attractive bayfront," Soyring said.
Early plans call for new and upgraded restrooms, children's play equipment and both beach and trail improvements, among other amenities. The ideas came from the "Your Bay, Your Say" public input process and the next step is to hire an engineering firm, said Nathan Elkins, Parks and Recreation Commission chairman.
Preliminary engineering designs will help determine what will be built and where, what features will look like and how much it will cost, Elkins said.
"We can show people we will make it a lot nicer with places for people to use the space," he said.
The city's Downtown Development Authority budgeted $100,000 for engineering designs, an expenditure that will be discussed at their next meeting on Dec. 18.
"We just hope this isn't another plan that will sit on the shelf," said Jim Carruthers, the city commissioner who will work on the bayfront plan with the Parks and Recreation Commission.
How to pay for what's expected to be a multi-million dollar bayfront overhaul is still in question.
One idea is to ask voters to use Brown Bridge Trust Fund dollars to leverage as local matching money for a variety of local, state, federal and foundation grants.
The city intends to apply for a $5,000 Rotary Charities grant to pay for a contracted coordinator to organize the many grant applications that will be necessary to bring the bayfront plan to life, said Becky Ewing, Rotary's program officer.
"We're trying to be a lot more methodical about how we look at grant opportunities," she said. "It obviously is our opportunity to create a world-class waterfront."
