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21st Century city in the making
Reinventing Marquette’s lower harbor and adjacent downtown
has been a priority to residents of Marquette and their city government
for years. Now, Ellwood Mattson Lower Harbor Park, conversion
of Lake Superior and Ishpeming Railroad properties to condominiums,
construction of Marquette Commons and miles of bike paths in Marquette’s
downtown and waterfront district are attracting attention from
state and national organizations.
Marquette is one of seven Michigan cities in the running for the
Michigan Municipal League’s (MML) Community Excellence Award—a
competition meant to reward communities adapting to the needs
of the twenty-first century. Other Upper Peninsula cities nominated
Marquette for the honor. At this month’s MML annual convention,
nominees will present their achievements to officials from throughout
the state.
Greg Mingay and his shop, Second Skin Shop, have weathered economic
downturns and location changes, but Mingay has been part of Marquette’s
downtown waterfront district through thick and thin. Mingay said
he appreciates the way Marquette has changed.
“Mattson Park was a drop off site for coal unloading,”
Mingay said. “There were chemical tanks and the old railroad
yard along the lakeshore. But in the last forty years, Marquette
has transformed.
It’s the access to the waterfront that is so wonderful, Mingay
said.
“Other cities have very little waterfront open to the public;
it’s tied up by hotels and restaurants,” he said. “People
from outside our community are flabbergasted by the beauty of
Marquette and the accessibility of so much waterfront to the public.”
Mingay, who walks to work most days, often leaving the family
car unused for weeks at a time, is the perfect example of how
the community has “reinvented itself,” said assistant
city manager Karl Zueger. While most of America sprawled toward
suburbia and turned its back on downtowns, Marquette invested
in its waterfront district and is starting to reap the benefits.
“This community has had great thinkers in the last fifteen
years, who understood where the trends were going,” Zeuger
said. “They looked at blighted properties and said we need
to take control of those properties to control our destiny.”
Entitled “Marquette’s Downtown Waterfront Revitalization
Project,” Marquette’s presentation will compete with
the Lathrup Village Timebank Project, the Allegan “Only One
Allegan” Project, the Wyoming TEAM 21 Project, the Mt. Pleasant
Borden Building Restoration Project, the Lexington Bach Festival
and the Cadillac Clam River Greenway Project.
According to the MML, the awards will reward those “passionately
and aggressively pushing change for better communities.”
Projects will be evaluated on the “Eight Essential Assets
of a 21st Century Community—Physical Design & Walkability,
Green Initiatives, Cultural Economic Development, Entrepreneurship,
Diversity/Multiculturalism, Messaging & Technology, Transit
and Education (K-16).”
“The planning commission had visionary goals for the community
(when the process began) but I don’t think we understood
how visionary the ideas were,” said city planner/zoning administrator
Dennis Stachewicz. “We wanted to be a walkable community,
but when you relate it to the twenty-first century, the term is
‘multi-modal.’ Walking used to be seen as recreation.
Now walking and biking are transportation that plays into energy
conservation and our ‘footprint’ on the planet. Downtown
is the hub of that change.”
Stachewicz said Marquette was a “city at a crossroads”
and organized community groups to rewrite the city’s master
plan in 2003. Planning commission chairman Stephen DeGoosh then
introduced the idea of Form-Based Coding.
“We made a huge investment, spending $200,000 on the planning
process because we needed to get all the experts together in our
community,” Stachewicz said.
Stachewicz said Form-Based Coding allows once-industrial areas
to be reused in ways not possible under traditional zoning. Under
Form-Based Coding, the city establishes the appearance and construction
materials for developments, but allows people to live, work and
play in the same areas.
“The community wants mixed uses,” he said, explaining
that entrepreneurs decide whether retail, residential or industrial
activity will fill spaces. “Form-Based Coding helps us maintain
our history, create public spaces and really allows the private
sector freedom it didn’t have before. It encourages private
investment and helps form the character of things.
“We call it ‘place-making’ in the planning world.
It’s not about tourism. It’s about getting people to
live, walk and shop downtown and about making downtown an integral
part of people’s lives.”
Mona Lang, executive director of the Marquette Downtown Development
Authority, called Marquette’s shot at the Community Excellence
Award a “great opportunity” for both the city and the
State of Michigan.
“There are still a lot of legislators in Michigan who have
not been to Marquette and don’t understand what this city
has to offer,” Lang said. “This competition can open
up opportunities for them to look at Marquette as a location to
attract business to Michigan.
“Last summer, Lieutenant Governor Cherry was here. I took
him on a walking tour of downtown and the waterfront and he was
absolutely amazed at what Marquette has done. He wrote us a nice
letter saying what a ‘jewel’ the city of Marquette was.”
Lang keeps before-and-after photographs at her office in the restored
Rosewood Building to remind herself how much has been accomplished.
“The biggest thing is connectivity (between the waterfront
and downtown),” she said. “We’ve taken the overhead
rail and embankments down to connect North, South, East and West
to the lake. Pedestrian walkways connect parking to the business
district. It has taken a long time to happen, and it’s involved
a phenomenal amount of community input.
“With all the new restaurants and people willing to invest
in Marquette, to take the leap of faith—the Pesolas, Wells
Fargo, the folks at Donckers, Rhys Mussman and the Voncks with
their waterfront properties—these people have faith in the
future of Marquette and have been faithful to the historic nature
of downtown. The community should be proud of what it has done.”
As Lang, Stachewicz, Zeuger and arts and culture administrative
director Nikke Nason prepare for the Community Excellence Awards
Presentation, each asserts that a “sense of place” is
the city’s key asset.
“People pick where they want to live, then figure out what
to do for a living,” Stachewicz said. “Outsiders see
(what Marquette has to offer) and might be the next…to move
here and start a business.”
Nason said economic downturns devastated art programs in most
of Michigan, but Marquette residents keep arts and culture a priority.
Ticket sales and participation are up for every art event this
year, she said.
“The U.P. doesn’t get the funding or attention bigger
cities receive downstate, but Marquette somehow keeps things going,”
she said. “We have a proud tradition of doing more with less,
and our art organizations have always been community-based. We
have all the offerings of a large city on a small scale; that’s
especially true of the arts. Perhaps we can serve as a model for
other communities.
“It’s not just about buildings; it’s about people
working together. You can build buildings, but if you don’t
have a sense of place, who is going to fill them?”
Nason said events like the Superior Bike Fest, Blueberry Festival,
Art on the Rocks, Ore to Shore Mountain Bike Epic, Marquette Area
Blues Festival, Olympic Speed Skating, Noquemanon Ski Marathon
and the U.P. 200 Sled Dog Championship add even more character
to the community and help its economy.
Key elements of the Community Excellence Awards are green initiatives,
such as reclaiming brownfield areas and the daylighting of streams.
Zeuger said the use of walking and biking as eco-friendly transportation
also are vital.
“It’s multi-modal, alternative modes of transportation,”
Zeuger said. “The CEO of Google was interested in Ann Arbor
because a large percentage of Google’s employees don’t
own a vehicle. They choose to live in locations where they can
walk and use mass transit. If you don’t have a vehicle, it
saves purchasing capacity. You can afford a better home and increase
purchasing power, but it requires that you live in an urban core.”
Zeuger said technology has aided the downtown’s renaissance,
as the Internet allows business to reach beyond the city’s
borders. In addition, the city is partnering with Northern Michigan
University to bring wireless Internet coverage to the entire area.
The Internet has helped V.I.O., Getz’s Department Store,
Pioneer Labs and entrepreneurs like Mingay bolster Marquette’s
new economy, he said.
“Because of the Internet, we’ve had years with fifty-percent
increases in sales,” Mingay said. “The expansion was
almost too fast. In 2008, it was eighty percent of our business.
We are the largest Capezio and Danskin dealer in the State of
Michigan, despite our location.”
Mingay’s brother Dennis manages Getz’s, currently the
third largest Carhart dealer in America, thanks to Internet sales.
Other local retailers like Sports Rack, which also does business
on the Web, have found niches in the Internet marketplace.
Stachewicz said the combination of technology and development
allows Marquette to combat “brain drain.”
“Young people used to get an education, then leave,”
he said. “By providing good infrastructure and amenities
that make Marquette a good place to live, we can avoid that.”
With the development of Founders Landing and more efforts to make
Marquette a walkable, bikeable community, Zeuger and his colleagues
see a bright future for Marquette as a twenty-first century city,
whether or not it wins the Community Excellence Award.
“The decisions we make today will benefit us ten to fifteen
years from now,” Zeuger said. “The return won’t
be seen immediately, but this community understood that years
ago. We see the benefit of that in the accolades and awards we’ve
already received.”
—Eric Hammerstrom
The Greatest American Road—Peninsula
to Peninsula
Ten years ago, Yoopers discovered how important US-41 is to north-south
travel. The Tower Lake fire, burning more than 5,000 acres, caused
rerouting over back roads, requiring a half-day, instead of hours
to cross Marquette County.
For the approaching winter, sun-seeking Marquette County residents
will return to the south-running, nation-crossing US-41. If heading
toward Florida, they should know they are traveling on—sometimes
near—the most-scenic, culturally historic, sportingly-diverse
and down-right fascinating highway in modern America.
Early credit for revealing this still largely unknown reality
needs to be extended to the Keweenaw County Road Commission. Twenty
or so years ago, now retired wise souls erected and painted, at
a woodsy cul-de-sac, a mile past Copper Harbor (near Fort Wilkins)
the wooden sign still showing where US-41 begins on its path of
1,990 miles to Miami Beach.
From the Upper Peninsula to the Florida peninsula, a little understood,
yet remarkably significant, paved-surface meanders through eight
states and breezes through Green Bay, Milwaukee, Chicago, Nashville,
Atlanta, Tampa and Miami.
Thus, from the middle of the greatest expanse of freshwater in
the world, past the sandy shores of Lake Michigan, passing the
Sun Coast of the Gulf of Mexico, a pavement links the north to
the south (and east) when US-41 ends—at US-1—on the
coast of the Atlantic Ocean.
A ribbon of asphalt and concrete connects National Parks in the
U.P. to the Okefenokee Swamp and the Everglades—from bear,
moose and wolves to flamingos, manatees and alligators.
From the Yankee-north to the Dixie-south; from the Green Bay Packers
to the Miami Hurricanes; from trout and bass to tarpon and barracuda;
and from pasties to grits, this truly is a Great American Road.
Fabled Route 66, from Chicago to Los Angeles, the first-fully-paved
national highway, also crossed eight states. “The Mother
Road”—so named by John Steinbeck in The Grapes of Wrath
(1939)—earned its fame from Americans seeking a fresh go
in California during the Great Depression.
Consistent with its down-trodden American image, the now discontinued
US-66 started at an intersection with US-41 in the big smoke of
Chicago, passed endless cornfields, crossed the muddy Mississippi
River, continued through the dusty and dry southwest and ended
in smoggy L.A. Lacking much other than roadhouses, Route 66 attracted
songsters, many recording variations of “Get Your Kicks on
Route 66.”
After Chicago, passing through Nashville, Route 41 is acknowledged
in song too: country artist Patty Loveless with rocker Peter Wolf
gives voice to, “And the 41 goes on and on...” From
the Allman Brothers in “Ramblin’ Man,” we have,
“I was born in the backseat of a Greyhound bus rollin’
down Highway 41.”
But US-41 has more than music and great national parks for sweeping
scenery. After the Keweenaw Peninsula—it winds past the golden-sands
of Lake Michigan, crosses Chicago along the stunning Lake Shore
Drive, is lifted over the soft, blue-tinted, most scenic mountains
of three states before passing some of the best shores of the
Caribbean and ending within walking distance of the most beautiful
beaches lining the Atlantic Ocean.
While still in the Upper Peninsula, up and then down, US-41 crosses
the southern portion of the Michigamme Highlands between Baraga
and Marquette. Little-noticed locally—except by hunters,
fishermen and snowmobilers—this compact ecological system
is among the most significant in the world. It contains not only
remote lakes, but wildlife as broad as any in the northern states.
In addition to including Michigan’s highest point of land,
the Highlands serve as a source for more than a dozen rivers,
providing fish spawning grounds and water for two of the Great
Lakes.
Yoopers know from their history lessons and their family albums
US-41 begins where Indians traded copper, then fur-trading flourished,
followed by the forests and mines providing new starts for immigrants
from Ireland, Scandinavia, England, Slavic nations and the Italian
city states. US-41 ends where the Spanish explorers sought gold,
the Slave Trade flourished and where rockets now carry women and
men into space.
For culture, US-41 provides access to fine museums in Milwaukee,
Chicago, Miami and more. Then there is the country music of Nashville,
the blues of Chicago, the bluegrass horse estates of Kentucky
and the CNN and Coca-Cola worlds of Atlanta. There is the old
day site of the Underground Railroad and the new Disney World.
For sport, besides passing near a thousand golf courses, there
is Packerland, Da Bears, the Braves, the Buccaneers and the Hurricanes.
For fishing: lake trout, walleye and salmon in the north, bass
in the middle and anything-you-want ocean-catching in the south.
There are interesting place names along the route. Near Cape Coral
and Fort Meyers in Florida, there is the community of Little Lake.
Italians must have named places such as Venice, Venetian Bay,
Rome and Naples. Cockroach Bay is south of Tampa. Looking carefully
travelers might glimpse, at Ochopee (Florida), the smallest post
office in the United States.
The winding concrete and asphalt trails, like a family tree over
time, have siblings and there are branches with names like 141,
241, 341, 441, 541 and 641; some branches take you to a cousin
or an uncle we don’t mention, a Capone or a Dillinger.
With the scenery, history, culture, sports and names, US-41 reaches
into America’s modern heart and soul. It is not the “Mother
Road” or the “Lincoln Road” nor one of the many
“River Roads.”
US-41 quite simply is “The Greatest American Road.”
—Rob Cope
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