06/10/2006

From fountains to amphitheater

Ideas from MSU students run the gamut

By Vanessa McCray

vmccray@record-eagle.com

Record-Eagle/Jan-Michael Stump
Jack Kurzava, left, and his wife Doris Kurzava talk about the landscape designs for Traverse City's waterfront presented by Michigan State University's Small Town Design Initiative Thursday night at the Hagerty Center.

TRAVERSE CITY — Fountains in the parkway, a bayfront amphitheater, more walkways and colorful murals are among design highlights from a year's worth of waterfront planning.

Those ideas, and hundreds of others, will give a foundation for more concrete and less conceptual designs.

Traverse City's bayfront planning board will meet June 14 at 7 p.m. at the Great Lakes Campus to discuss a process for hiring a consultant to provide more engineering, architectural and landscaping assistance.

The planning effort started last year when students from Michigan State University and the University of Michigan gathered public input about how to improve the design of the waterfront, Boardman River bank and the connection to downtown.

Michigan State's design concepts were presented Thursday to a crowd of about 100 residents. The students' designs covered a two-mile stretch of bayfront from M-72 to the Traverse City Senior Center.

MSU's Warren Rauhe said he heard two consistent comments from the community: Don't overbuild the bayfront or "touch" the Farmers' Market.

Ideas for the west end ranged from improving the shoreline to installing fountains in the parkway that spurt to life, signalling motorists when pedestrians use the crosswalks.

"We may push it a little bit," Rauhe said.

But other suggestions, like adding a walkway along the west end, aren't such "big" steps, he said.

On the bayfront's east side, designs called for colorful flowers and a playground at Sunset Park.

At the site of the former power plant — the hulking blue structure that once blocked views of the bay — the students included an amphitheater.

That would be a "perfect fit" on the bay, said Alan Collard of Traverse City.

"They have volleyball and biking; they don't have places for the whole family," he said.

The planning process gained added importance last fall when the city commission decided to close the city's Clinch Park Zoo, a long-time bayfront attraction.

City planner Russ Soyring said what to do with that area is a priority. The students suggested commercial and educational uses and better access across the parkway.