TCBN January 2023

WHAT TO WATCH 2023

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LEAR TO EXPAND IN TC

Southfield, Mich.-based Lear Corporation plans to expand its current manufacturing facility in Traverse City to manufacture components related to an electric vehicle battery pack. The expansion includes more than $28 million of capital investment and will create 79 new advanced manufacturing jobs. The project is part of a larger statewide Lear expansion expected to generate a total capital investment of $112.5 million and create up to 500 jobs, supported by a $4.5 million Michigan Business Development Program performance-based grant. The Michigan Strategic Fund also approved a 15-year, 100-percent State Essential Services Assessment exemption valued at $1.9 million in support of the project. Michigan was chosen for the project over other competing sites.

INCUBATOR FARM RECEIVES $700K GRANT

The Grand Traverse Conservation District’s newest program, the Great Lakes Incubator Farm (GLIF), recently received a $695,617 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). This grant is part of a $24 million investment from the USDA across 45 organizations and institutions that teach and train new farmers and ranchers. GLIF was created in response to the current state of agriculture in the Grand Traverse region. It is estimated that in northern Michigan approximately 83,000 acres of farmland will transition hands in the next 10 years. Yet it has become increasingly difficult for retiring farmers to transition their land to new farmers, adding to the growing pressure to convert farmland to development.

NEW HEADQUARTERS FOR PROUT

Prout Financial Design has moved to its new headquarters at 1105 E. Eighth St. in Traverse City, complete with new offices, multiple meeting spaces and a brandnew facility called the Financial Learning Center – a state-of-the-art classroom for hosting client and community financial literacy classes. “We’re talking about opening the space up for community classes on important topics like Medicare, accounting, finances, insurances – all offered by local professionals,” said Dennis Prout, owner and certified financial planner. “People need help navigating the complexities of retirement. The Financial Learning Center will fill that need.”

Over the past 5 years, I have been able to grow my real estate business largely with the help of client referrals. The loyalty you all have shown me and the referrals that have come from you have been invaluable to my business. I am so blessed to be able to do what I love — helping others find the home of their dreams! If someone you know is looking to make a move, please don’t hesitate to reach out!

PETS NATURALLY FRANCHISE OPENS IN GR

Pets Naturally, northern Michigan’s only holistic pet supply store, has expanded into the Grand Rapids area. The franchise, called Your Pets Naturally (gr.yourpetsnaturally.com), has opened at 6439 28th St. SE in the Cascade East Shopping Mall and is owned by Jim VanDyken. The store offers a wide variety of safe, natural food options, holistic supplements and wellness products, homemade bakery treats, and a variety of toys and accessories for dogs and cats. Owner and franchisor Kathy Hyland opened Pets Naturally in Traverse City in 2013.

GROUNDBREAKING FOR WORKFORCE HOUSING

Developers of Brigantine Apartments, a workforce housing project in East Bay Township, broke ground in late November with the expectation of a November 2024 completion date. The development, located on a 38-acre site on Four Mile Road just north of Hammond Road, will provide 192 apartments, plus amenities including a clubhouse and swimming pool. The property is owned by Coseo Properties Inc., which owns and maintains almost 3,000 residential units across Michigan. Construction is by Cunningham-Limp, with local design and development partners including Traverse Architect Group and Mansfield Land Use Consultants.

LOCAL WINERIES NAB MAJOR AWARDS

Six area wineries captured 41 awards at the recent invitation-only Jefferson Cup Invitational Wine Competition. The awards included seven for the top honor of the Jefferson Cup Award: Aurora Cellars claiming three, Good Harbor Vineyards taking two and one Jefferson Cup went to both Brys Estate and Two

It was an absolute delight working with Pam through our recent real estate transaction. Her professionalism and knowledge of the real estate market helped us tremendously when making decisions about pricing, showings, and negotiating. She guided us seamlessly from listing through showings to the closing, with no stress on our part. She is a true advocate for her clients, going well above and beyond the usual expectations of a Realtor.

JANUARY MEMBERSHIP OFFER

Kick off 2023 with 50% off a membership at the most inclusive club in Traverse City. Sign up for a Village or Pick 6 membership, January 1-31, and receive half off the initiation fee. Make a splash at the indoor pools and hot tubs, enjoy tennis and pickleball courts, and fun members-only social events. Plus, save on dining, spa treatments, golf, and more. 231-534-6586 | grandtraverseresort.com

Owned and Operated by the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians

K Farms. In addition to the Jefferson Cup awards, Traverse City wines took seven gold, 21 silver and six bronze medals. Wines invited to participate are culled from tastings and competitions throughout the year. “For riesling, pinot gris, pinot blanc and others, I think the wineries from around the Traverse City area are leading the way for American wineries,” said competition founder Doug Frost.

– which won – and Relay Payments. The Women In Trucking Association Technology Innovation Award recognizes innovation, vision, and technical achievements that support and advance the trucking industry. REVOLOK USA recently launched its REVOLOK 6600, which eliminates the guesswork of determining how tightly to secure cargo. revolok.com

NEW NAME FOR UNDERWRITERS GROUP

The Northern Michigan Association of Health Underwriters has changed its name to the National Association of Benefit and Insurance Professionals –Northern Michigan. As the premier trade association representing health insurance agents and brokers, the new name and identity better represent the association’s expanded membership.

NEW: FOCUS CHIROPRACTIC

Focus Chiropractic will open in Traverse City this month, offering chiropractic care, massage therapy, decompression and is the only practice in northern Michigan offering SoftWave tissue regeneration therapy. The practice is owned by Dr. Josh Bowman and his wife, Hilde, practice manager. It is located at 3899 W. Front St., Suite 2; focuschirotc.com.

ANNIKA PLACE CONSTRUCTION UNDERWAY

Construction of Annika Place , a new 53-unit affordable housing community by Woda Cooper Companies, Inc., is now underway at 947 S. Garfield Ave. in Traverse City. The $14.7 million project will provide 29 one-bedroom and 24 two-bedroom apartments for residents who earn 30-80% of the area median income. Rental rates are projected to range from $360 to $1,125 per month. Rental assistance vouchers for eight units will be provided by the Traverse City Housing Commission.

20FATHOMS NAMES NEW DIRECTORS, 2023 BOARD

Grey Luyt and Rebecca Teahen have been elected to Traverse City-based tech startup incubator 20Fathoms’ board of directors. Luyt is an attorney and shareholder at Bowerman, Ford, Clulo & Luyt in Traverse City. Teahen is an associate financial advisor at Baird in Traverse City. Re-elected to the 20Fathoms board of directors are Chair Lowell Gruman, Casey Cowell, Janie McNabb, and Eric Roberts.

TRAVERSE CONNECT ELECTS 2023 OFFICERS, NEW DIRECTOR

Traverse Connect recently elected its new slate of officers for 2023. They are Sara Harding of Cherry Republic, chair; Matt Wille of Munson Healthcare, vicechair; Janis Adams of Danbrook Adams Raymond, secretary; Rachel Johnson of Cherryland Electric Cooperative, treasurer; and Russ Knopp of Comfort Keepers, immediate past chair. The board also elected Kacie SanMiguel, principal at Plante Moran, to a threeyear term. She serves as the new finance chair. Current director Dave Mengebier was named government relations chair.

LOCAL ATTORNEY WORKING CAMP LEJEUNE CLAIMS

TC MANUFACTURER RECOGNIZED FOR INNOVATIVE TECH

Bill Sullivan, CEO of REVOLOK USA in Traverse City, was recently honored with the finalist award for the Women In Trucking Association Technology Innovation Award at the 2022 Accelerate Conference & Expo. REVOLOK USA competed against other transportation-related companies that submitted their innovative tech for the award, including Walmart

Attorney Lawrence R. LaSusa, founder of the Grand Traverse region pro bono Wills for Vets program, recently announced his law firm, LaSusa Law Offices, PLC, has formed a strategic alliance with a nationally recognized law firm handling hundreds of Camp Lejeune claims. “Our combined forces are utilizing state-of-the-art client intake software to fully analyze and address the complex issues surrounding these claims, and process them as efficiently as possible,” said LaSusa.

Hart Insurance Agency Inc

As we kick off the new year, it’s interesting to look back on the growth of Traverse City and the broader region over the first two decades of the 21st century. The early 2000s saw several changes that would lead to considerable regional economic and cultural development and significant impact on our population growth.

Between 2001 and 2003, our region added more new and expanded industrial development than any other small town in the country. Projects including Britten’s major expansion, TranTek’s new production plant, and D&W’s mechanical contracting facility led Site Selection Magazine to rank Traverse City the number one small town in America back-to-back in 2002 and 2003. These were some of the first, of many, accolades that brought national recognition and new people to our region.

Meanwhile, our world-class cultural assets grew as well. The former state hospital was purchased by the Minervini group in mid-2002 and work began to transform it into the Village at Grand Traverse Commons. The State Theater Group and Interlochen first announced a partnership to renovate the State Theater in 2003 – the year that also saw the major renovation of the City Opera House to its current form. Our economic and population growth over the past 20 years is the envy of other parts of Michigan and the Midwest that have seen dwindling economies and declining populations. This growth, however, has

The Missing Middle

Recently-passed legislation provides new tools to address local workforce housing needs

also resulted in significant economic and community challenges related to workforce housing.

A 2019 study by Housing North estimated a shortfall of 15,000 housing units in the region through 2025. Three years later, this shortage has been exacerbated by the pandemic and associated issues, including supply chain constraints, labor supply, short-term rentals, interest rate increases, and further increased housing demand.

To address these challenges, leaders from across the state banded together over the past few years to form the Housing Michigan Coalition. This group focused on advancing forward legislation in Lansing that provides new tools and policy improvements for local communities across the state to address workforce housing independently.

Coalition members Housing North, Traverse Connect, and the Northern Michigan Chamber Alliance worked with partners across the state to advocate for these needed policy changes. The priorities were to improve local control in housing decision-making, provide more flexibility for local municipalities to apply these new tools as local conditions warrant, and address the “missing middle” gap of work-

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force housing to benefit residents who have difficulty obtaining market-rate housing but have more income than would qualify for subsidy programs.

Thankfully, our collective voices were heard as Michigan policymakers came together in a successful bipartisan effort to pass the package of housing legislation in December. The package provides new tools to address our local housing needs in several important ways, including two bills from local lawmakers. A payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) bill, sponsored by Sen. Wayne Schmidt, allows local governments to provide low-income housing tax credits for workforce housing projects. Rep. John Roth sponsored a bill that allows municipalities to offer temporary tax abatements for multi-family or single-family housing.

The legislation also offers new ways for local governments to address the missing middle subset of workforce housing. Municipalities can now create “attainable housing districts” where property owners can apply for partial tax exemptions if they meet affordability requirements set by the local government and Neighborhood Enterprise Zones to support the construction of new homes or

condominiums in mixed-use buildings in newly designated zones.

While this legislation is a big step forward, successful growth in attainable housing stock for local communities depends on deploying and utilizing the new tools in our neighborhoods. Effective partnerships between private sector developers, nonprofits, and local governments will be key to success.

As state agencies begin implementing the legislative changes, business leaders can engage with local officials to discuss the importance of these programs to address workforce housing. Local elected officials and municipal leaders will have an opportunity to attend information webinars hosted by Housing North to learn more about implementing the new tools available to them.

County, city, villages, and townships will be key to implementing these tools and changing the narrative about our region’s housing opportunities for working families. We may not fully address the workforce housing gap by 2025, but by working together with effective public-private partnerships we can significantly impact our region’s future growth and success. Local business and community leaders of the mid-21st century will thank us for taking action today.

Warren Call is the president/CEO of Traverse Connect. Contact him at warren.call@ traverseconnect.org.

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We may not fully address the workforce housing gap by 2025, but by working together with effective public-private partnerships we can significantly impact our region’s future growth and success.

WHAT2WATCH

What will make headlines in 2023

By Craig Manning

It’s January and that means it’s time for the TCBN’s list of happenings in and around Traverse City as we head into the New Year. Here are 16 of the people, places, and products to watch, including FishPass, the community of Kingsley, new hotels in and around TC, the arrival of commercial cannabis, inflation and labor, and much more.

Fall 2022 was hotel building season, with no fewer than eight new hotels either in site preparation mode or fully under construction.

If all those hotels are built as planned, they would add nearly 800 rooms to Traverse City’s room capacity – a 20 percent increase over the 4,000 hotel rooms that already exist.

Here’s a quick rundown.

Tru by Hilton: This four-story, 90-room hotel in Garfield Township will soon join the area’s hospitality industry – if it hasn’t already. As of press time, Fritz Heller, the president of hotel developer Northern Michigan Hospitality Management (NMHM), said he was expecting the certificate of occupancy for Tru to come through by the end of December and that the hotel would likely “be selling rooms by January.” The hotel is located on US-31 South, across from Panera Bread.

Fairfield Inn & Suites by Marriott: With Tru done, NMHM is gearing up to build a four-story, 95-room Fairfield right next door on US-31 South. Heller said that all permitting is complete and that construction should kick off in the spring, with a target opening date of May 2024.

Avid: A four-story, 92-room Avid Hotel is under construction on the US-31 North parcel in East Bay Township previously occupied by Wendy’s restaurant. Lake

Michigan Hospitality 31 LLC, the developer, demolished the Wendy’s in August to make way. Andy Abro, an equity partner/ owner of Lake Michigan Hospitality 31 LLC, had previously estimated a completion date of September 2023; he did not return a request for a status report.

Residence Inn by Marriott and Staybridge Suites: Construction is also underway at another property in East Bay Township, this one the former home of Pebble Brook Adventure Park. Those projects have been in the works since 2018, with COVID-19 forcing the developer – the Farmington Hills-based Premier Hospitality – to reapply for site plan review with the township. Now, construction is finally underway, with the same concept as in 2018. Both hotels will be six stories, with the Residence Inn boasting 123 rooms and the Staybridge Suites 122. Also planned is an 8,692-square-foot restaurant/retail space which could host a restaurant, drive-through coffee shop, or other uses. The project is on track for a phased buildout with a late spring/early summer 2024 completion.

Hyatt House: An extended-stay Hyatt House hotel is also bound for East Bay between the Traverse City State Park campground and the Hampton Inn. The hotel will include 143 rooms across five stories, as well as a 4,153-square-foot restaurant with outdoor seating. Construction hasn’t broken ground yet, according to developer

Chris Abbo, but he said he and his team “are near completion of our drawings, have started estimating the project, and are trying to time it out for a second or third quarter 2023 start.” Abbo is hopeful the hotel would be ready to open by “first quarter of 2025.”

The Alexandra Inn: The smallest on the way is the Alexandria Inn, a 32-room boutique inn on US-31 between Pointes North and Gens Park. According to Ali Wuerful, director of operations for Wuerful Resorts – which will develop, own and operate the new inn – the project has

moved ahead quickly since it was approved by East Bay Township last spring.

Marriott Autograph: Jeff Schmitz, the developer who brought Hotel Indigo to Traverse City a decade ago, is now bringing another to the Warehouse District. That project will be four stories and will encompass approximately 100 rooms, plus a restaurant, three bars, and a rooftop space similar to Indigo’s.

With core planning approvals now in place, Schmitz says his development group – the downstate-based J.S. Capitol – has already started excavation.

> EIGHT NEW HOTELS

Could 2023 be the year northern Michigan finally moves the needle on affordable housing?

Some good news from late-2022 suggests the answer might just be yes.

In December, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed a package of four affordable housing bills into law. The legislation, led in part by the locally-based Housing North, was developed in part by 60-plus housing advocacy organizations throughout the state.

Two of the bills are expansions of existing programs – PILOT (Payment in Lieu of Taxes), which helps eliminate some of the tax burdens faced by workforce housing developments; and Neighborhood Enterprise Zone legislation, which offers financial incentives for the creation of workforce housing.

The other two bills introduce new tools into the affordable housing equation – one through housing districts targeting rehabilitation projects and one by creating new residential facility tax exemptions for income-eligible housing projects.

Housing North Executive Director Yarrow Brown sees the legislation as a victory for attainable housing. While she told the TCBN that the bill package is not a “silver bullet” and will not solve the region’s housing crisis outright, she

still expects it will entice more developers to build, encourage more of those developers to set aside units for income-restricted demographics, and enable developers already working in this space to work faster and more efficiently now that certain barriers are out of the way.

“I can’t predict the future, but we have 1,100 units that we’re watching and we know are in progress (throughout our 10-county territory), and I think these tools will help bring more projects into that pipeline,” Brown said.

Here’s a quick rundown of just a few of the affordable housing projects on the horizon:

• Annika Place, a $14.7 million project that will bring 53 new affordable apartment units to the property at 947 S. Garfield Ave., officially broke ground last month. Units will be reserved for those earning 30-80 percent of area median income (AMI). Woda Cooper Companies, Inc., the developer, was also behind Ruth Park, which recently brought 58 units online in Traverse City for those in the 30-80 percent AMI bracket.

• The Traverse City Housing Corporation (TCHC) officially has the green light to break ground on the Flats at Carriage Commons, its affordable housing development at the corner of Hammond and Lafranier roads. It will consist of five

multifamily buildings, encompassing more than 200 units in total. Rents are expected to fall between $680 and $820 per month, including utilities.

TCHC Executive Director

Tony Lentych said the organization has enough funding to build one of the five buildings and is pursuing funding opportunities to cover the remaining costs. BATA is also building its new headquarters on the site, while Habitat for Humanity plans to build 15 single-family homes there.

• HomeStretch Nonprofit Housing Corporation has numerous irons in the fire for affordable housing in and around Traverse City. One is in Suttons Bay, where the organization recently broke ground on Vineyard View Apartments, eight brand-new townhouse-style apartments reserved for low-income residents. Another is a proposed 10-unit apartment building on Carver Street in Traverse City. Also in Traverse City, HomeStretch is working to finalize a purchase agreement with the City of Traverse City to buy one of the city’s downtown parking lots (Lot O) and redevelop it into 60 rental apartments.

PARKER HARVEY IS PROUD TO WELCOME ATTORNEY

JACQUELINE P. OLSON, J.D.

Ms. Olson is a cum laude graduate of the Detroit - Mercy School of Law where she was president of the school’s Environmental Law Society and received the college’s Community Service Award. The focus of Ms. Olson’s practice is real estate, construction law and land use/zoning.

We’re honored to have her on our team!

Expect new projects to emerge throughout 2023 as well. For instance, Traverse City Area Public Schools (TCAPS) is considering selling its administration building. The TCAPS Board of Education voted in 2022 to solicit offers to see if the structure or the property could be put to a better use. While the board rejected the two initial offers they received – one from TCHC, the other from Ethos Development Partners, both of which would have converted the property to housing – trustees have expressed interest in keeping the conversation open.

> LABOR, INFLATION AND PRICING

2021 was a bad year for most employers: According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 47 million Americans quit their jobs in 2021.

In February 2020, right before the pandemic, the U.S. labor force had reached an all-time high of 164.6 million people. In other words, in 2021 alone, approximately one-third of American workers took part in the phenomenon that has since been dubbed the Great Resignation.

You don’t need to go far to see how that trend has impacted local employers; organizations in virtually every northern Michigan sector have been vocal about their difficulties finding employees – whether at job fairs, in the media, or via visible help wanted signs outside their businesses.

Labor trends aren’t the only existential challenges facing employers. Inflation has sent prices for many goods skyrocketing, which in turn has slowed spending. In June of 2022, for instance, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) charted a 9.1 percent year-over-year jump – the largest increase in 40 years. Food, energy, gas, and many other goods saw their biggest price jumps in recent memory in 2022.

Labor challenges and rising prices are pinching businesses in potentially unsustainable ways. Speaking to TCBN sister publication The Ticker in August, Soon Hagerty – who owns the downtown restaurant The Good Bowl – proclaimed that the current trends were effectively breaking the restaurant business model.

“Restaurateurs are paying cooks $3 to $8 more per hour for the same role as last year, cost of goods is up 30 % and half of the time you can’t even get supplies that you need to run the business,” she explained. “The post-pandemic is wreaking havoc on the restaurant model as a whole and you cannot offset the costs enough to the customer to even level this out. Raising prices can’t be the only solution.”

On the labor side, expect to see more local employers investing in housing for their workers. In 2022, Short’s Brewing Co. bought a motel to accommodate sea-

sonal staff, while Grand Traverse Resort and Spa broke ground on a dormitory to house visa workers from other countries.

Resort General Manager Matthew Bryant said the local shortage of affordable housing is the biggest challenge many employers face when trying to fill positions, and that employers building their own housing is likely the only way they will be able to go forward for the next five to six years until something significantly changes with affordable housing in the region.

Meanwhile, inflation persists. Based on the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) index – which economists often cite as the best measure of actual inflation, as it excludes data from the especially volatile food and energy markets – inflation in 2022 far outpaced what experts expected.

Based on a Bloomberg survey from last year, the PCE index was predicted to fall to 2.5 percent by the end of 2022; per the New York Times, it’s running at 5 percent. Now, economists are projecting that the PCE index will be down to 3 percent by the end of 2023, but as the Times article explores, there is some skepticism as to whether those projections will be accurate when last year’s weren’t.

The good news is that the straightening out of the global supply chain is finally starting to deliver noticeable benefits to consumers – namely, more product availability and price declines. Lately, those positive shifts have been seen in markets ranging from new and used cars, to furniture, to coffee, to clothing and apparel, to home appliances. Expect those trends to continue in 2023 – hopefully delivering some much-needed relief to employers and consumers.

Eric Nittolo is building a mini restaurant empire in Lake Leelanau.

On the heels of launching a private jazz club called Powerhouse Speakeasy last spring – which itself came shortly after the February 2021 opening of Nittolo’s Pizza and the May 2021 inception of Nittolo’s Seafood & Social – Nittolo is ready to introduce a fourth restaurant concept.

This one, simply called “The Social,” will feature a menu of authentic Spanish tapas and wine, offered in a cozy wine lounge setting.

A 2007 graduate of the Great Lakes Culinary Institute at Northwestern Michigan College, Nittolo worked in the kitchens of numerous establishments in and around Traverse City, including The Boathouse on Old Mission Peninsula, Reflect Bistro at Cambria Suites Hotel, and LochenHeath Golf Club.

In 2017, after returning to Traverse City from a three-year spell working in Virginia, Nittolo circled the idea of opening a restaurant – also called Nittolo’s Seafood & Social – on Union Street in downtown Traverse City. That version of the restaurant never materialized, but Nittolo found a home for his authentic Italian cooking in Lake Leelanau.

Lake Leelanau also provided one big benefit over Traverse City: Where downtown TC space is scarce, often small, and always priced at a premium, Nittolo was able to secure what he calls “a whale of a building” in Lake Leelanau. That building, the former home of Bella Fortuna restaurant, boasts 7,000 square feet of space.

All that extra room has given Nittolo the freedom to expand and explore new culinary ideas without having to invest in separate spaces. All three existing Nittolo’s restaurant concepts – the pizzeria, the seafood restaurant, and the speakeasy – currently operate at the 104 Main St. address, and come May, Nittolo will add a fourth.

The Social will feature a menu of tapas, or Spanish small plates, and will occupy the same bar space that is used on Friday and Saturday evenings for Power-

house Speakeasy.

“We have this vacant room for most of the week with this beautiful bar in it that sits empty Sunday through Thursday,” he said. “So we thought, ‘Let’s open that space as a Spanish tapas and wine lounge, and we’ll run it Sunday through Thursday, and we’ll be open from 7-11pm.’”

The space will then morph back into the speakeasy on Friday and Saturday nights.

Nittolo’s goal is to deliver something that doesn’t exist elsewhere in northern Michigan’s restaurant scene. To that end, he’s planning to take a research trip to Spain in March to get a better handle on the art of authentic Spanish cooking.

Based on what he learns from the trip, Nittolo’s plan is to craft a 12-item tapas menu with each item priced in the $6-$8 range. That approach and pricing model will encourage diners to order a variety of small plates to try or share. In addition to the Spanish appetizers, The Social will feature 12 Spanish wines available on tap via a new cuvée wine system.

Beyond The Social and his other existing restaurant concepts, Nittolo also isn’t ruling out future growth or additional restaurant concepts at the 104 Main St. building. He says he has an entire dining room in the building that goes largely unused in the summertime, thanks to the restaurant’s substantial outdoor seating capacity.

“Our outdoor seating will be 176 people next year,” he noted. “And so that big dining room, unless it’s inclement weather or 90 degree outside ... sits vacant in the summer.”

> NITTOLO’S IN LAKE LEELANAU

Big dreams for your business in 2023? We've got a loan for that.

The Village of Kingsley is going to have a big 2023. For years, this small northern Michigan town has been referred to – perhaps unfairly – as one of Traverse City’s bedroom communities. That conversation hasn’t died down in recent years, as rising housing prices and limited residential inventory in Traverse City have forced more people who work in TC to live elsewhere.

But Kingsley seems to be ready for its reputation as a bedroom community to drift away. Significant growth and development is playing out in Kingsley, and those trends have the potential to turn the town into a thriving little city all its own. Here’s a sampling:

Brownson Park transformation

Kingsley was recently awarded a $1 million grant from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation to revitalize Brownson Memorial Park, which is essentially the town’s main square. The money, which comes from the state’s Public Gathering Spaces Initiative, will pay for a substantial transformation of the 2.4-acre park, including new walking paths, fitness stations, splash pad upgrades, perimeter fencing, ground surfacing, upgraded playground equipment, ADA-friendly structures and amenities, and equipment to support park events like festivals, local business activities, and the recently revamped Kingsley Market. The village also received an additional $50,000 “Assets for Thriving Communities” grant as part of the Rotary Charities of Traverse City fall grant cycle, with the money earmarked for the Brownson Park project.

A new brewpub and beer garden

“We will be welcoming at least two new businesses into the area (in 2023),” said Max Anderson, chair of the Kingsley Downtown Development Authority and Brownfield Redevelopment Authority Board. The first is Kingsley Local Brewing Company, which is setting up shop in the historic building located at 121 Brownson Ave. Pete Kirkwood, owner of Traverse City’s Workshop Brewing Company, is behind the project.

According to Terry Beia of Southtown Property Management – which controls roughly half of the commercial property in Kingsley, including the lease on 121 Brownson Ave. – Kirkwood is “putting the final touches in preparation for opening his brewpub.” Beia expects that having a downtown brewery “will be a game-changer in Kingsley,” not least because the project will also include a dynamic outdoor beer garden with food trucks, not unlike Traverse City’s Little Fleet.

A new downtown restaurant

The other new business Anderson referenced is

a new and improved restaurant located at the old Kingsley Inn, a space most recently occupied by Judson Market & Restaurant. Brian McAllister of Hofbrau in Interlochen recently signed a long-term lease/option-to-purchase contract with Beia’s Southtown Property Management for the 211 E. Main St. building.

Beia said that his company is conveying the liquor license for the property to the tenants, and that McAllister and company will likely be open in early 2023.

“A good, sit-down family restaurant is something the community has asked for over the years, and we are confident that Brian is the person to lead the effort long-term,” Anderson said of the project.

Other downtown development

Both Southtown Property Management and the Kingsley DDA have other plans that could reshape downtown Kingsley.

First, Beia said that Southtown is in the process of interviewing prospective tenants for one of its key properties: the former J. Wall Diner space at 413 W Main St. Though J. Wall Diner only opened its doors in August 2021, the business was short-lived and ultimately closed down.

That closure, Beia noted, has left Kingsley lacking the old “greasy spoon” breakfast model. He says he is hopeful to find someone to take over that space.

“The only other vacant building that we have in town is the former car wash on Clark Street, across from J. Wall Diner,” he said. “Our ideal tenant for that space will be a coffee shop/bakery. The building will require significant improvements prior to move in, but I’m hopeful that we can have it leased sometime in calendar year 2023.”

While those two buildings represent the last of Southtown’s vacant properties, another Southtown asset could become available in 2023: the current home of Kingsley Lumber at 311 S. Brownson Ave.

“We are in the very early stages of working with the management of Kingsley Lumber to find a suitable upgraded property to relocate the business and free up that valuable downtown parcel,” Beia said. Kingsley Lumber is located directly adjacent to Bronson Memorial Park.

“Ideally, the Kingsley Lumber property would be better suited for a tasteful mixed-use commercial/residential development,” Beia said.

HISTORIC HANNAH LAY BUILDING LUXURY CONDO

109 E Front Street | Traverse City, MI

At the beginning of 2022, Northwestern Michigan College (NMC) officially adopted a new strategic plan. The year since has been full of big news and evolutions, ranging from new degree programs to smaller strategic and master planning projects, all the way to an uber-ambitious vision for a state-of-the-art freshwater research facility right in Traverse City. Here’s a quick recap:

A new strategic plan for the NMC Foundation

In the wake of the Be What’s Possible campaign – a record-breaking fundraising effort that accumulated $40.3 million over a five-year period – the NMC Foundation is resetting itself.

The foundation, NMC’s fundraising arm, launched a new strategic planning process in July. College leaders say the new plan will reflect a changing landscape in higher education and charitable giving – one where declining enrollments render colleges increasingly reliant on donors, and one where shifting demographics push organizations to zero in on younger donors.

The Foundation is also on the hunt for a new leader, following the July departure of Executive Director Rebecca Teahen; expect the college to hire someone to fill that role this year.

The first campus master plan in a decade

NMC is in the process of drafting its first new campus master plan since 2012. The document will serve as a 20-year roadmap for utilization of campus buildings and property assets, from existing buildings to vacant properties to parking lots.

NMC Vice President of Finance and Administration Troy Kierczynski said the process will likely take most of 2023. Key questions include whether NMC needs as many parking lots or faculty offices in the era of remote learning and remote work, how the college should invest in sustainability going forward, and whether to proceed with a previously-announced plan to build a new senior living and learning center on a vacant parcel NMC owns on Eastern Avenue.

New or evolving programs

2022 was a lively year for program degree expansions, additions or tweaks. Early in the year, the aviation department launched a three-year, multi-phase strategic plan aimed at growing the program by 25 percent – a response to a global post-pandemic pilot shortage.

In June, NMC announced plans to transition its police academy to a new condensed program format. In the summer, a legislative compromise – and a $56 million appropriation in the state budget – opened the door for community colleges to partner with four-year institutions to offer bachelor’s degrees in nursing. The college has its sights set on fall 2023 to add a bachelor of science in nursing to its offerings. In November, NMC announced the introduction of a new associate of applied science degree in water quality environmental technology – a program Great Lakes Water Studies Institute Director Hans VanSumeren said will address a critical industry shortage of water quality experts. That program will also begin in fall 2023.

A freshwater research hub

News broke this summer about an ambitious partnership between NMC, Michigan Tech University, 20Fathoms, Traverse Connect, and Discovery Center & Pier to create a state-of-the-art Freshwater Research and Innovation Center on Grand Traverse Bay.

The ambitious project would bring an 85,000-square-foot, $60 million facility to Discovery Pier, creating a facility that would include not just a public pier, but also research labs, classroom and seminar space, a startup incubator, and more. The goal is to establish the Grand Traverse region as a globally recognized hub for applied freshwater innovation. The first phase of the project – focused mainly on fundraising, pier development, campus design and planning, and governance – is currently underway and will likely carry on through 2024.

In November, Discovery Center & Pier also broke ground on a project to transform its old coal dock into a fee-free, barrier-free park and hub for water-based activities. That part of the project has been in the works since 2016, when Rotary Camps and Services purchased the dock from the City of Traverse City. However, it also doubles as the first step toward a grander vision at the site.

Cherryland ably miles

been stores. square

space,

rently

Your own private rooftop with floor to ceiling glass views overlooking the bay

522 E FRONT STREET TRAVERSE CITY, MI

SHAWN SCHMIDT SMITH ASSOCIATE BROKER

Cherryland Center stopped being the “center” of anything many years ago – arguably all the way back in 1992 when Grand Traverse Mall set up shop less than three miles away. But could this once-prosperous hub of local commerce become an epicenter of activity in 2023?

This year could be the renaissance. The Traverse City Curling Club is set to open its new curling center this month in the former Kmart building. That building has been vacant since 2017, when Sears Holdings Co. announced it was closing 49 Kmart stores. But Traverse City Curling Club finalized a deal in June to purchase the 28,000 square foot building – plus its adjacent parking lot – and convert it into a local hub for the increasingly popular sport.

The Traverse City Curling Center, which will occupy a third of the old Kmart space, is slated to open later this month, complete with a social area, warming kitch en, meeting room, curling pro shop and five sheets of dedicated curling ice. The Curl ing Center will then host league play for the TC Curling Club, learn-to-curl classes for beginners and more.

The other two-thirds of the building – approximately 55,000 square feet – are being renovated and brought up to white box standards, at which point they will be available for lease.

The Curling Club and its eventual tenants aren’t the only new fixtures coming to Cherryland Center. The old Sears building – vacant since 2018 – is also cur rently being revitalized. Ulysses Walls, an Alpena-based cardiologist, purchased the 100,000-square-foot building and is planning to open a K1 Speed indoor go kart racing franchise there.

K1 Speed is an indoor go kart racing company with more than 60 locations worldwide, including one other Michigan location in Oxford. K1 Speed specializes in 20-horsepower electric go karts that can reach speeds of up to 45 miles per hour for adult riders and 20 miles per hour for junior riders. Walls is hopeful the business will be ready to open by June.

Beyond go karts, the Traverse City K1 Speed location will host a restaurant – called the Paddock Lounge – and a video game arcade. Walls also noted that a K1 Speed fa cility only demands about 50,000 square feet of space, leaving about half of the Sears building vacant for some other use.

“My thought is to use the front part of the building for K1, and the other half for something like Sky Zone (trampoline park franchise),” he said.

Walls also floated the possibility of laser tag or indoor putt-putt golf coming to the K1 Speed facility at some point in the future.

In Walls’ view, go karts and curling are concepts that make sense for repurposing old big box buildings like the Cherryland Center. He thinks those types of indoor recreation hold the key for revitalizing the mall into a new focal point of local commercial traffic.

“These large buildings – something needs to be done with them,” Walls said. “The mall has been closed for a long time, and there’s not a need for that much retail space anymore. What do you do with something like that? Indoor entertainment and activities make the most sense. Our use goes really well with the curling club. Our hope is that whole (mall property) will become a family entertainment complex.”

Four years and four months: If all goes according to plan, that’s how much time will have elapsed between the day Michigan voters legalized recreational marijuana and the month City of Traverse City officially issues its first adult-use marijuana retail licenses.

According to City Clerk Benjamin Marentette, the City expects to have recreational cannabis licenses issued by March of 2023. It was all the way back in November of 2018 that Michigan voters cast their ballots to approve the proposal.

Those many months have been a saga of ever-evolving draft ordinances, lawsuits ... and fervent pleas from local medical marijuana retailers begging the city to hurry up in adopting adult-use rules.

The city initially opted out of embracing voter-approved recreational legalization, choosing instead to take its time in developing an ordinance that would limit and regulate adult-use operations in town. That opt-out dragged out for years, but 2022 saw light at the end of the tunnel when the city finally settled on an ordinance and opened up applications for recreational marijuana licenses.

While city commissioners worried that dozens of potential operators might apply and prompt a complicated and arduous process for picking winners and losers – something that did happen

in 2019 when the City of Traverse City first opened the gates for medical marijuana – only 16 businesses submitted applications before the August 26 deadline.

As written, the city’s recreational cannabis ordinance allows for the up to 24 adult-use cannabis dispensaries within city limits. With only 16 applicants – and with those applicants spread relatively evenly across the city’s map of “overlay districts,” which caps how many licensees can be located in different zones throughout the city – the city clerk’s office does not need to proceed with a competitive scoring process for distributing licenses.

That extra step would have likely added several months to the process. Instead, Marentette told the TCBN that his office is in the process of reviewing the applications with plans to issue licenses by next spring.

Without a competitive scoring step, the general assumption is that all 16 applicants will receive licenses. That list includes all 12 businesses currently licensed as medical cannabis provisioning centers, as well as four players that would be setting up brand-new businesses in Traverse City.

Some of those existing operators –such as Skymint at 822 East Front St. – had temporarily closed their medical establishments in TC, but will likely

reopen if/when they are licensed to sell adult-use. The licensing process could also bring other northern Michigan cannabis players – such as Lume Cannabis and Dunegrass – into Traverse City for the first time.

The biggest question mark might be the future of 314 Munson Ave. That address received one of the 12 (originally 13) medical marijuana permits in 2019, but never actually opened its doors as a medical provisioning center. Thanos, LLC, the company that owns the property, was included on the list of adult-use applicants that the city published in September.

However, because the initial medical

marijuana licensing process included requirements for licensees to open their establishments by certain dates, there is some question about whether 314 Munson will be allowed to keep its medical permit, let alone nab an adult-use one. Marentette said his office is reviewing its status.

In any event, it is safe to say that recreational marijuana will be available for purchase at numerous stores within city limits by spring. Only time will tell just how much traffic those businesses can attract, or whether the city can support 16 marijuana retailers within its eight square miles.

VISION:

Develop a clean, modern building that will serve various retailers for years to come

In my 30 years in the business, I’ve worked with many contractors throughout the state. Burdco is one of my favorites –honest, flexible and responsive. Mike Brown is a class act.

different groups,” he said. “Number one would be nonprofits and projects; number two would be community initiatives and networks; and number three would be providing space and support for food

Stoltz thinks turning Grow Benzie into more of a service-oriented organization will help make foundational things – like encouraging local donations or seeking out grant funding – easier. In

turn, he’s hopeful that more buzz and financial support will enable Grow Benzie to expand its reach and impact exponentially, beginning in 2023.

“Our former model was useful, because we were connecting a lot of people with a lot of things, but it’s real hard to ask for money (with that approach),” he explained. “Coming into 2023 with an updated mission and vision, we’re in a much better position to tell our story.”

– Jerry Snowden Miller Snowden Development Group

Mike Brown Burdco

Kelly Miller Miller Snowden Development Group

Adam Miller Miller Snowden Development Group

Jerry Snowden Miller Snowden Development Group

While city commissioners worried that dozens of potential operators might apply and prompt a complicated and arduous process for picking winners and losers – something that did happen

WHAT2WATCH

Four years and four months: If all goes according to plan, that’s how much time will have elapsed between the day Michigan voters legalized recreational marijuana and the month City of Traverse City officially issues its first adult-use marijuana retail licenses.

2022 was a big year for Grow Benzie, the self-described rural prosperity incubator that works to assist “good people who have good ideas to have an impact for children, families, and communities in Benzie County.”

According to City Clerk Benjamin Marentette, the City expects to have recreational cannabis licenses issued by March of 2023. It was all the way back in November of 2018 that Michigan voters cast their ballots to approve the proposal.

In November, Grow Benzie was honored at the Governor’s Service Awards. The organization was named as a recipient of the 2022 Community Impact Award, being praised for its role as a partner and anchor for dozens of clubs, nonprofits and collaborative bodies in northern Michigan.

Those many months have been a saga of ever-evolving draft ordinances, lawsuits ... and fervent pleas from local medical marijuana retailers begging the city to hurry up in adopting adult-use rules.

While Grow Benzie has been around since 2008, Executive Director Josh Stoltz says he thinks the organization is just hitting its stride. The organization was initially envisioned as a community center of sorts – an epicenter to offer event space, a commercial incubator kitchen, a community garden, and other services and amenities.

es in Traverse City.

Some of those existing operators –such as Skymint at 822 East Front St. – had temporarily closed their medical establishments in TC, but will likely

ical provisioning center. Thanos, LLC, the company that owns the property, was included on the list of adult-use applicants that the city published in September.

However, because the initial medical

limits by spring. Only time will tell just how much traffic those businesses can attract, or whether the city can support 16 marijuana retailers within its eight square miles.

in 2019 when the City of Traverse City first opened the gates for medical marijuana – only 16 businesses submitted applications before the August 26 deadline.

“We already had a sewing studio, so we offered them that space, and I also said ‘I can help you recruit volunteers,’” he said.

With a potluck and some promotions, 30 volunteers showed up. Stoltz and his group continue to help with promotions and procuring fabric for the kits.

RECREATIONAL MARIJUANA IN TRAVERSE CITY

“Now they have over 60 people, they’ve made thousands of these kits, and they’ve sent them to 10 different countries around the world,” he said. “They have even developed to the point where they can pay us to rent that sewing studio space.”

As written, the city’s recreational cannabis ordinance allows for the up to 24 adult-use cannabis dispensaries within city limits. With only 16 applicants – and with those applicants spread relatively evenly across the city’s map of “overlay districts,” which caps how many licensees can be located in different zones throughout the city – the city clerk’s office does not need to proceed with a competitive scoring process for distributing licenses.

The city initially opted out of embracing voter-approved recreational legalization, choosing instead to take its time in developing an ordinance that would limit and regulate adult-use operations in town. That opt-out dragged out for years, but 2022 saw light at the end of the tunnel when the city finally settled on an ordinance and opened up applications for recreational marijuana licenses.

When Stoltz came aboard in 2015, he says he felt the space – which encompasses four acres and multiple buildings – was underutilized, and that Grow Benzie as a whole wasn’t having a big enough impact or bringing in enough funds to be sustainable.

While city commissioners worried that dozens of potential operators might apply and prompt a complicated and arduous process for picking winners and losers – something that did happen

Then, almost by accident, Stoltz stumbled upon a new path forward by coalescing various local groups with needs like Days for Girls, which makes reusable feminine hygiene kits for overseas girls.

That model – of partnering with existing organizations and serving as a booster to help them grow – became the raison d’être. Fast forward a few years and Stoltz said the organization has been able to take the success and impact it had with Days for Girls and “times that by 20.” He expects to see that impact continue to grow exponentially in the year and years to come, thanks in part to a brand-new strategic plan.

That extra step would have likely added several months to the process. Instead, Marentette told the TCBN that his office is in the process of reviewing the applications with plans to issue licenses by next spring.

Without a competitive scoring step, the general assumption is that all 16 applicants will receive licenses. That list includes all 12 businesses currently licensed as medical cannabis provisioning centers, as well as four players that would be setting up brand-new businesses in Traverse City.

The new plan, which Stoltz said was finally completed in November, is helping the organization to transition into a more formal service entity, helping to push local organizations out of their silos and the county toward a more collaborative mindset.

reopen if/when they are licensed to sell adult-use. The licensing process could also bring other northern Michigan cannabis players – such as Lume Cannabis and Dunegrass – into Traverse City for the first time.

tion as a rural prosperity incubator, and that will be offering services for three different groups,” he said. “Number one would be nonprofits and projects; number two would be community initiatives and networks; and number three would be providing space and support for food entrepreneurs.”

Some of those existing operators –such as Skymint at 822 East Front St. – had temporarily closed their medical establishments in TC, but will likely

“Transitioning into 2023, we’re formalizing three pillars of our organiza-

The biggest question mark might be the future of 314 Munson Ave. That address received one of the 12 (originally 13) medical marijuana permits in 2019, but never actually opened its doors as a medical provisioning center. Thanos, LLC, the company that owns the property, was included on the list of adult-use applicants that the city published in September.

Stoltz thinks turning Grow Benzie into more of a service-oriented organization will help make foundational things – like encouraging local donations or

However, because the initial medical

requirements for licensees to open their establishments by certain dates, there is some question about whether 314 Munson will be allowed to keep its medical permit, let alone nab an adult-use one. Marentette said his office is reviewing its status.

seeking out grant funding – easier. In turn, he’s hopeful that more buzz and financial support will enable Grow Benzie to expand its reach and impact exponentially, beginning in 2023.

“Our former model was useful, because we were connecting a lot of people with a lot of things, but it’s real hard to ask for money (with that approach),” he explained. “Coming into 2023 with an updated mission and vision, we’re in a much better position to tell our story.”

In any event, it is safe to say that recreational marijuana will be available for purchase at numerous stores within city limits by spring. Only time will tell just how much traffic those businesses can attract, or whether the city can support 16 marijuana retailers within its eight square miles.

The Arcade, one of the most iconic buildings in downtown Traverse City, will get a significant makeover in 2023.

News broke last spring that Cherry Republic was planning to buy the building and relocate its downtown Traverse City operations there. The move kicked off a domino effect of changes that will continue to reverberate throughout the New Year.

Moving to the Arcade was attractive to Cherry Republic because it offered the business a chance to co-own its own building. While Cherry Republic has had a presence in downtown TC since 2007, the company leases its current 10,000-square-foot premises at 154 E. Front St. and has never owned downtown real estate.

Through a deal with Arcade owner Terry Beia, Cherry Republic will take 50 percent ownership of the Arcade, with Beia retaining the other half. Speaking to TCBN sister publication The Ticker in May 2022, Cherry Republic owner Bob Sutherland said the business was “excited to be able to fully express our brand in a permanent space, and where our investment turns into equity, as we have done in Glen Arbor.”

Under the deal, Cherry Republic took over approximately 14,000 of the Arcade’s 16,000 square feet, with plans to renovate the building in time for a spring 2023 move. While Sutherland did not return a

Could a game-changing treatment for COVID-19 soon be one of northern Michigan’s most valuable exports? Northern Michigan’s newest innovator, Bruce Patterson, M.D., thinks so.

Patterson, formerly the director of clinical virology and co-director of the AIDS Research Center at Stanford University, is the CEO and founder of IncellDx, Inc., described as “a molecular diagnostics company dedicated to revolutionizing healthcare one cell at a time.” He’s also a brandnew northern Michigan resident, having relocated from his former home in Silicon Valley. IncellDx, which purports to be at the cutting edge of multiple types of disease diagnostics and therapeutics – including COVID-19 – is making the move with him.

As Patterson tells it, it was only a matter of time before he and his company ended up back in the Mitten. “My family has had a presence [in northern Michigan] for five generations, in terms of being here in the summer,” he said. He also got his undergraduate training at the University of Michigan, before matriculating to Northwestern University for medical school. Since 2007, he and his wife have maintained a summer home in Frankfort. With their daughter in college – and with the pandemic triggering a remote work revolution – Patterson and his wife decided to relocate.

Also involved in that decision was Casey Cowell’s Boomerang Catapult, which works actively to bring businesses to the region – particularly those that travel in the biotechnology and healthcare circles to which IncellDx belongs. Impressed by

request for an update, a real estate listing for the 154 E. Front space notes that the company’s lease expires at the end of March, and covered-up windows at The Arcade suggest that renovations are underway.

Two big questions are what the revitalized Arcade building will look like when Cherry Republic takes up residence, and what will happen to the sprawling 154 E Front St. space. Between those two buildings, the face of downtown could look significantly different at the end of 2023.

Also worth watching is where former Arcade tenants go. While The Flying Noodle has a lease with options through 2030 on some of the Arcade space, most of the businesses that previously called the building home – including Art & Soul Gallery, 2nd Level Goods, Studio Anatomy, Bayfront Scooters, Yellow Umbrella Vintage, and Black Candle Tattoo – had to move out by September 7.

Several of those businesses have already landed at new locations. Bayfront Scooters moved to the Civic Center, for instance, while 2nd Level Goods opened a new location at 2751 N US-31 South, next door to Red Lobster.

Perhaps the biggest question mark on the relocation front, though, is Studio Anatomy, which has yet to resurface. That business – which included a recording studio, a music venue, art studio workspaces, and a vinyl record shop – occu-

Boomerang Catapult’s ability to bring “people from all walks of life” to northern Michigan – and by Traverse City’s growing status as a hub of innovation and entrepreneurship – Patterson decided to bring his business with him.

“Really, we’d split our business into two parts anyway – diagnostics and therapeutics,” Patterson said. “And it just made sense for the therapeutic side of our business to be based someplace like Traverse City – a place that’s trying to promote life science and biotechnology, and to do it in such a beautiful place. It’s a spot where we can do great science in an inspiring setting.”

What exactly is the science of IncellDx? Per Patterson’s bio, that part of the tale actually starts decades ago, when, in the early days of the AIDS epidemic, he “began investigating cellular reservoirs of HIV-1 using molecular and in situ technology patented in his laboratory.” Patterson eventually “determined that enough HIV virus was present in infected individuals to account for the massive destruction of the immune system.” That research, which was published in the renowned scientific journal Science in 1993, played a crucial role in the scientific community’s understanding of how HIV and AIDS affected the immune system, and how they could be detected and diagnosed at the cellular level.

That same passion for molecular diagnostics eventually led to the establishment of IncellDx, which Patterson founded in 2009.

pied the basement of The Arcade for 10 years. Brian Chamberlain, who owns Studio Anatomy, told The Ticker in May he was considering several options for his business’s new digs, including a space at Cherryland Center.

Speaking to the TCBN in December, Chamberlain said that “things are just starting to come together” for Studio Anatomy – though he noted that finding a big enough space to host all of the business’s functions has proved challenging. He recently leased space for Eugene’s Record Co-op at 1036 Barlow St., across the street from the Sail Inn. Chamberlain plans to incorporate “a couple art studio work spaces” into the building as well. Renovations are underway to get the store ready for a targeted February 1 opening date.

Meanwhile, Chamberlain says he remains on the hunt for a larger, separate building to accommodate the recording studio and performance venue of Studio Anatomy and is eyeing the former 4Front Credit Union training center building on Hastings Street, and possibly the old Younkers or remaining space next to the Curling Club at Cherryland.

This past summer, Chamberlain says the group “fell short” on its “Save the Studio” fundraising campaign to establish a spot at Cherryland, but he’s confident he will be able to continue Studio Anatomy in a new location in 2023.

IncellDx focuses this technology on addressing “critical life-threatening diseases,” including HIV/ AIDS, cancer, hepatitis, organ transplant infections, and now, COVID-19. On the latter front, IncellDx claims that it has developed a diagnostic test that can not only detect long-haul COVID in patients, but also inform a treatment plan and show patients that the treatment plan is having an impact.

“We were the first to identify long COVID,” Patterson said. “We were the first to identify what the effects are on the immune system from long COVID. We were the first to identify what might be causing long COVID. And then we came up with a therapeutic for long COVID that looks very promising.”

Patterson noted that IncellDx’s diagnostics for long COVID have already “been commercialized all over.”“So, we’re already testing a lot of patients who think they have the symptoms of long COVID, and we’re using those test results and algorithms to decide what drugs they might respond to. And they are responding. The next plan is to take those drugs through the FDA and get them approved.”

Speaking to the TCBN, Patterson underlined the importance of the medical community focusing its energies on finding an effective treatment for long COVID and finding it fast.

“Economic analyses show what a

The brewery component will be a new feature of the Studio Anatomy model, as Chamberlain said he is “working in tandem with a local brewery on the new performance venue to determine how much space we need and the right location in town.”

Chamberlain is hopeful that he will be able to have Studio Anatomy up and running at least partially by July of 2023, and the entire operation running by the end of 2023.

disaster long COVID could prove to be for the United States,” Patterson continued. “It’s estimated that 140 million people worldwide may have it, including 20-30 million Americans... That’s really the new epidemic, to me, because it doesn’t matter how mild the infection is. We’ve seen long COVID with the omicron variants, even though they usually don’t have as severe an infection as the original alpha variant. So, long COVID is a big problem and it’s going to be for a while. But we’ve found similarities between long COVID and patients who have chronic Lyme disease or chronic fatigue syndrome. So those similarities are what we’re attacking with these new drug combinations.”

If IncellDx does prove to be on to something with its unique approach, Traverse City will now be a part of that story. Patterson said that “it’s all very preliminary” still, in terms of the company’s overall plans in northern Michigan, but that “an office, a laboratory, and manufacturing operations are all things that are under consideration right now.”

> THE ARCADE

Somewhere along the line, Traverse City’s FishPass project turned into a never-ending saga.

Details about the project first came to light in 2018, when it was unveiled by the Great Lakes Fishery Commission as an experimental way to pass desirable fish species up the Boardman River while keeping out invasive species.

The idea was to create a world-class technological system fish biologists around the world could use to evaluate different fish sorting strategies. Traverse City was selected from a list of a dozen potential sites, with plans aimed at replacing the deteriorating Union Street Dam in downtown TC with the innovative FishPass design.

Fast-forward more than four years and FishPass has yet to be built. Most of that delay is the result of a lawsuit, which has now kept the project stalled for nearly two years. In 2020, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers awarded Traverse City’s own Spence Brothers Construction the contract to build FishPass for $19.3 million. Construction was supposed to start in January 2021, with spring 2023 slated for project completion. But a lawsuit from city resident Rick Buckhalter halted the project and it has yet to pick up steam again.

Buckhalter and his attorneys argued

2023 will mark 18 years since the Traverse City Film Festival (TCFF) made its debut in July 2005. Fittingly for an event that has nearly been around long enough to be a legal adult, northern Michigan’s annual showcase of “Just Great Movies” seems likely to enter a new chapter in 2023.

TCFF technically started a fresh era in 2022, not only making a post-pandemic comeback after two years without a festival, but also bringing in a new festival director, board and team. Despite a well-received return, TCFF 2022 does seem likely to be an outlier, for several reasons.

For one thing, Johanna Evans, who helmed the 2022 film festival as its interim director, is unlikely to return. Evans, who serves as managing director for the American Resiliency Project and editorial analyst for Disney, told TCBN sister publication The Ticker in June that she only intended to serve one season with TCFF. Evans’ LinkedIn page also now lists TCFF as a past contract position, with a six-month engagement of April-September 2022.

TCFF 2022 was also unorthodox compared to other past versions of the festival due to its layout. Specifically, rather than sticking to its usual list of venues in and around town, TCFF screened many its 2022 films at the AMC Cherry Blossom theater. Evans told The Ticker that initial plans for TCFF 2022 had involved returning to

that the Union Street Dam is considered city parkland and therefore cannot be “disposed” of without a vote of city residents. Furthermore, Buckhalter contended that the major, long-lasting changes that would be made to the park as part of FishPass would constitute a disposal of city parkland.

Due to the lawsuit, Judge Thomas Power immediately issued a temporary injunction that delayed the project start date; Power later ruled in favor of Buckhalter.

In October, the Michigan Court of Appeals overturned Power’s ruling, determining the property in question continues to be used for valid park purposes under the project and that FishPass does not qualify as a disposal of parkland. Therefore, the city does not need to pursue a public vote to move forward.

That ruling effectively frees the city and its partners from the injunction that has been blocking FishPass since early 2021 – not that picking up exactly where things left off is a realistic option. In October, City Attorney Lauren TribleLaucht told TCBN sister publication The Ticker that there would likely need to be “quite a bit of work…behind the scenes to understand how the agreement might need to be updated.”

Everything from construction costs to funding sources to project contracts to buildout timelines will need to be revisited. City of Traverse City staff will eventually bring an update to city commissioners about how FishPass will move

forward, but Trible-Laucht warned that “it might take us awhile to get prepared with all that information.”

Regardless of lingering questions and complexities, 2023 will likely be the year that FishPass finally spawns.

all of the festival’s traditional venues –including Lars Hockstad Auditorium at Central Grade School, the City Opera House, and Milliken Auditorium – but that a shortened timeline for putting the festival together, plus skyrocketing gas prices, supply chain issues, and labor shortages made those plans impossible.

As a result, TCFF took place across just three venues in 2022: the AMC, the State Theatre and the Bijou by the Bay.

Plans for TCFF 2023 have yet to be formally announced and TCFF Founder Michael Moore did not return requests for comment on what the festival might look like. But with the State and

Bijou now seemingly back in their full pre-pandemic groove, the question is whether TCFF 2023 will also look a bit more like the festivals of 2005-2019. Look for TCFF to hire a new full-time festival director this year, and for the festival to find its way back into at least some of its trademark venues.

> TRAVERSE CITY FILM FESTIVAL

suit from city resident Rick Buckhalter halted the project and it has yet to pick up steam again.

Buckhalter and his attorneys argued

WHAT2WATCH

Ticker that there would likely need to be “quite a bit of work…behind the scenes to understand how the agreement might need to be updated.”

to buildout timelines will need to be revisited. City of Traverse City staff will eventually bring an update to city commissioners about how FishPass will move

Regardless of lingering questions and complexities, 2023 will likely be the year that FishPass finally spawns.

Somewhere along the line, Traverse City’s FishPass project turned into a never-ending saga.

2023 will mark 18 years since the Traverse City Film Festival (TCFF) made its debut in July 2005. Fittingly for an event that has nearly been around long enough to be a legal adult, northern Michigan’s annual showcase of “Just Great Movies” seems likely to enter a new chapter in 2023.

Details about the project first came to light in 2018, when it was unveiled by the Great Lakes Fishery Commission as an experimental way to pass desirable fish species up the Boardman River while keeping out invasive species.

TCFF technically started a fresh era in 2022, not only making a post-pandemic comeback after two years without a festival, but also bringing in a new festival director, board and team. Despite a well-received return, TCFF 2022 does seem likely to be an outlier, for several reasons.

The idea was to create a world-class technological system fish biologists around the world could use to evaluate different fish sorting strategies. Traverse City was selected from a list of a dozen potential sites, with plans aimed at replacing the deteriorating Union Street Dam in downtown TC with the innovative FishPass design.

For one thing, Johanna Evans, who helmed the 2022 film festival as its interim director, is unlikely to return. Evans, who serves as managing director for the American Resiliency Project and editorial analyst for Disney, told TCBN sister publication The Ticker in June that she only intended to serve one season with TCFF. Evans’ LinkedIn page also now lists TCFF as a past contract position, with a six-month engagement of April-September 2022.

Fast-forward more than four years and FishPass has yet to be built. Most of that delay is the result of a lawsuit, which has now kept the project stalled for nearly two years. In 2020, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers awarded Traverse City’s own Spence Brothers Construction the contract to build FishPass for $19.3 million. Construction was supposed to start in January 2021, with spring 2023 slated for project completion. But a lawsuit from city resident Rick Buckhalter halted the project and it has yet to pick up steam again.

Buckhalter and his attorneys argued

TCFF 2022 was also unorthodox compared to other past versions of the festival due to its layout. Specifically, rather than sticking to its usual list of venues in and around town, TCFF screened many its 2022 films at the AMC Cherry Blossom theater. Evans told The Ticker that initial plans for TCFF 2022 had involved returning to

things left off is a realistic option. In October, City Attorney Lauren TribleLaucht told TCBN sister publication The Ticker that there would likely need to be “quite a bit of work…behind the scenes to understand how the agreement might need to be updated.”

all of the festival’s traditional venues –including Lars Hockstad Auditorium at Central Grade School, the City Opera House, and Milliken Auditorium – but that a shortened timeline for putting the festival together, plus skyrocketing gas prices, supply chain issues, and labor shortages made those plans impossible.

Everything from construction costs to funding sources to project contracts to buildout timelines will need to be revisited. City of Traverse City staff will eventually bring an update to city commissioners about how FishPass will move

As a result, TCFF took place across just three venues in 2022: the AMC, the State Theatre and the Bijou by the Bay.

Plans for TCFF 2023 have yet to be formally announced and TCFF Founder Michael Moore did not return requests for comment on what the festival might look like. But with the State and

forward, but Trible-Laucht warned that “it might take us awhile to get prepared with all that information.”

Regardless of lingering questions and complexities, 2023 will likely be the year that FishPass finally spawns.

Bijou now seemingly back in their full pre-pandemic groove, the question is whether TCFF 2023 will also look a bit more like the festivals of 2005-2019. Look for TCFF to hire a new full-time festival director this year, and for the festival to find its way back into at least some of its trademark venues.

Is your agent a member?

Kevin Averill

Theresa Boensch

Kimberly Boyer

Dotty Brown

Denise Brummett

Kristen Cano

Gordon Chamberlain

Brian Cote

Brandon Darin

Patrick Dewey

Kevin Elliott

Patrick Elshaw

Madison Ford

Christina Gonzales

Kimberly Hall

Jim Hart

Cassandra Hawkins

Brian Huggins

Kevin Jansen

Jennifer Kuhar

Shirley Kulpa

Jennifer Ladley

Marcy Lay

Jacqueline Letts

Denise Lewaniak

Greg Lewis

Kevin Mannor

Jessica Marsh

Adriana Martin

Dawn McConnell

Jennifer McDonnell

Mark McLane

Thomas Mielke

Bonnie Nelson

Raquel Paulus

Tina Poindexter

Terry Roote

Vincent Rose

Kelly Sandy

Jennifer Seman

Mark Sisson

Jackie Steele

Jessica Stevenson

Logan Suttmann

Jill VanDriessche

Laverna Witkop

How long does it take to make a feature-length film in northern Michigan with no studio support and no Hollywood infrastructure? JohnPaul Morris and the team at Practical Films are finding out.

Though Morris and his company made a name producing TV commercials and promotional content, they’ve always harbored the dream of making full-length movies in Traverse City. In the fall of 2019, they did just that when Practical assembled a cast and crew of local talent to film Quicksand. But three years after that film wrapped production, it has yet to make its way to most audiences.

For his part, Morris is hopeful that 2023 is the year everyone will finally be able to see Quicksand . While a sizable handful of locals got to experience the film last summer as part of the Traverse City Film Festival, Quicksand hasn’t yet been widely released and still can’t be streamed, rented, found online or seen in theaters. That’s because, according to Morris, getting a film made, edited, finalized and in front of audiences is a whole lot like Sisyphus pushing a boulder up a hill in Greek myth.

“Making the film was an impossible feat that we actually succeeded in,” Morris said. “Truly, making movies should be impossible, but we did it and right now we’re looking at how to get that

The next few years could prove to be a major phase of transformation for downtown Traverse City. Here are just four developing storylines to keep an eye on in 2023.

Riverwalk and pedestrian plaza

Perhaps the most significant transformation in the next few years is the creation of a new riverwalk and pedestrian plaza along the Boardman River.

For years, the Downtown Development Authority (DDA) has been working on a unified plan for the 1.6 miles of the Lower Boardman/Ottaway River. Crucial to those discussions was how the DDA would factor in the more urbanized sections of the river that run through downtown – particularly the riverside alley space behind the 100 and 200 blocks of Front Street.

A lengthy visioning process culminated in 2022, as the DDA and its design partners unveiled plans for a pedestrian-friendly river walk design in that alley. The plan calls for a more naturalized riverbank, with steps, seating, lights, and other features that would encourage downtown visitors to interface with the river more directly.

The plan would also incorporate a new pedestrian plaza into the alley space, as well as reimagine the J. Smith Walkway between Pangea’s and Kilwins into a park-like space. Finally, the DDA hopes to add two new pedestrian bridges across the river – one of which would extend all the way over Grandview Parkway to Clinch Park Beach.

film to audiences. And that’s starting to feel nearly as difficult. But we’re proving that we can do difficult things, so we’re staying optimistic for sure.”

The team behind Quicksand has reason to be optimistic after a strong film festival season in 2022. While a rough cut of the film was initially rejected from many of the festivals on Morris’s wish list, a fateful call from the Traverse City Film Festival ultimately got the movie a poetic hometown premiere.

While Morris said TCFF is typically more of a “victory lap” festival in the film world than it is a premiere festival, Practical decided to grab the opportunity since it didn’t have any other festivals lined up for Quicksand at the time.

Quicksand ultimately sold out four showings, with audiences well exceeding the film’s inner creative circle. That level of interest – plus strong responses from all four audiences – helped give Morris some faith after the initial film festival rejections had dampened his hopes.

A successful post-TCFF festival run in the summer and fall of 2022 only did more to boost Morris’s spirits. First, Quicksand screened at two other Michigan festivals in late September – the Grand Rapids Film Festival and the Hell’s Half Mile Film & Music Festival in Bay City – and earned awards at both. The film also won the jury award for best nar-

According to DDA CEO Jean Derenzy, the river walk project will likely demand a phased approach. More clarity on timelines should be available soon: Sometime this month, the DDA is set to bring forward an implementation plan, laying out costs and timelines for the project. Some improvements are likely to begin this year, while others – such as the Grandview Parkway bridge – will likely have longer gestation periods.

Rotary Square

Also likely to see progress in 2023 is the creation of a long-awaited civic square at the corner of Union and State streets. The DDA issued a request-for-proposals for that project in November, seeking a consultant to help create a conceptual design. That design process is likely to take all or most of 2023, with opportunities along the way for the public to weigh in on what they would like to see.

2022 saw the DDA working to draw more attention and use to the space –most notably with a public tailgating party in October for the University of Michigan/Michigan State University football game. The square was also the site of Santa’s House during the holiday season.

TIF

One key focus for the DDA in 2023 will be the matter of tax increment financing (TIF) and which was recently identified by consulting firm Progressive Urban Management Associates (P.U.M.A.) as one of the most important

> PRACTICAL FILMS

rative feature at the Eau Claire Film Festival in Wisconsin, and even got accepted into the Austin Film Festival.

Now that studios have come calling, what does that mean for Quicksand and for Practical’s hopes of scoring a major distribution deal in 2023? Morris said that he and the team are considering all options for the next stage of the film’s journey. In many cases, he noted, independent films will make the rounds on the film festival circuit for one to two years.

“And at this point, we’re less than six months in,” he said – which could mean 2023 is another year of festival screenings for Quicksand.

“The festival circuit basically acts as a resume builder,” Morris explained. “And you want to have that resume so that you’re eventually able to walk into a studio, or a streaming service like Netflix or Hulu, and say, ‘Hey, look at the actual analytics of how our film is being received.’ That’s the next step that we need to take to actually get the film either into theaters or on a notable streaming service.”

Practical is still waiting to hear from

half a dozen winter or spring 2023 festivals to firm up its plans for the coming year. In the meantime, Morris is also in talks with several distributors to get the film out in the world for all to enjoy.

“I know there’s a lot of people who want to see it,” he laughed. “I just want to note that it is on its way to broader distribution and people who want to see the film will finally be able to watch it soon.”

considerations for the future health and prosperity of downtown.

Per the DDA website, TIF allows the DDA to capture property tax revenue on incremental increases in assessed property tax values within the downtown district over time. The DDA has two TIF plans in place – TIF 97 and Old Town TIF – both of which capture property tax revenue and funnel it toward public infrastructure improvements throughout the DDA district.

When it was first enacted in 1997, TIF 97 set and effectively froze a base value for each downtown property for a duration of 30 years. Per the DDA, that freeze means that the amount of money distributed to various taxing jurisdictions (the city, county, BATA, NMC, etc.) as part of standard property tax assessments remains the same throughout the life of TIF 97.

As downtown properties increase in value, the DDA gets to capture the tax revenue on that increased value.

With TIF 97 set to expire at the end of 2027, P.U.M.A. is urging the DDA to be proactive in getting it extended

for another 30 years. An extension would generate approximately $4 million for the DDA in the first year, which P.U.M.A. recommends the DDA split up into three buckets: 7080% ($2.8-$3.2 million) bonding for transformative projects like the civic square, riverfront improvements, and an eventual West Front Street parking deck; 15-20% ($600,000-$800,000) for DDA operations and services; and 10% ($400,000) for revenue share with other taxing jurisdictions.

Traffic patterns

A two-year pilot program is underway to try out new traffic patterns in downtown Traverse City. Officially launched in November, the two-year pilot program has converted several downtown streets from one- to two-way patterns –including State Street, Pine Street, and Boardman Avenue.

2023 will provide the first major takeaways on the pilot effort and could impact whether the DDA decides to extend the pilot program to a four-year window.

> DOWNTOWN TRAVERSE CITY

Even in 2022, dollars from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) were already shaping change in northern Michigan. In Leelanau County, for instance, the county’s board of commissioners voted last spring to allocate $3.2 million of Leelanau’s $4.2 million in ARPA funding toward a buildout of an ambitious county-spanning fiber internet network. Preliminary work on that project started in 2022, and Point Broadband – Leelanau County’s partner in building the network – has a target of finishing the network by the end of 2023.

In Grand Traverse County, though, 2023 will be the year that ARPA money starts making a difference. In December, after weeks of discussion about how to break up Grand Traverse County’s $18 million in ARPA dollars across 108 grant applications, county commissioners decided where to allocate that money.

The largest allocation, $5 million, will go toward mental health services and infrastructure. That could include a new local mental wellness center, but commissioners left the exact projects in that category to be determined by a future board. Under the recommendation of County Administrator Nate Alger, commissioners also decided to hold back $3 million of the ARPA funding for to-be-determined “county-specific use.” The remaining money was distributed as follows:

• $2 million for East Bay Township

• $1.5 million for Wallick Communities

• $937,500 for the Village of Kingsley

• $700,000 for Traverse Bay Children’s Advocacy Center

• $604,700 for Mt. Holiday

• $512,500 for National Alliance on Mental Illness Grand Traverse

• $500,000 for Legacy Aviation Learning Center

• $400,000 for Garfield Township

• $400,000 for Goodwill Northern Michigan

• $325,000 for Michael’s Place

• $300,000 for Grand Traverse Industries

• $285,000 for Garfield Township

• $256,515 for Grand Traverse Pavilions

• $235,000 for Pine Grove Church

• $225,000 for Blair Township • $150,000 for Grant Township

• $150,000 for Northwest Michigan Health Services

• $125,621 for Grand Traverse County

• $108,700 for Generations Ahead

• $95,917 for Whitewater Township • $75,000 for Fife Lake Township

• $75,000 for Green Lake Township • $41,800 for Grand Traverse Metro Emergency Services Authority • $35,000 for East Bay Township

• $20,000 for Acme Christian Thrift Store & Food Pantry

$10,000 for Kingsley United Methodist Church

$10,000 for Traverse City Area Public Schools

$3,000 for Slabtown Neighborhood Association

Michigan Tech Innovating in H-STEM from Traverse City, Houghton, and Beyond

By Megan Kelto

From automobiles to artificial intelligence, Michigan Technological University is known worldwide for innovation. As the Midwest’s flagship technological university, you’ll find Michigan Tech students, researchers, faculty, and industry partners doing important work across Michigan – from its campus in Houghton to its research centers in Traverse City, Calumet, and Ann Arbor.

For more than two decades, Michigan Tech faculty and students have been at the forefront of developing technologies that improve the human condition. Michigan Tech is a leader in H-STEM studies, which seek to solve complex health and quality of life challenges through the application of science, technology, engineering, and math. Interdisciplinary collaboration is key to unlocking new discoveries on the frontier of health sciences.

One recent collaboration resulted in the development of a new computer-aided method to improve the management of brain aneurysms. According to the Brain Aneurysm Foundation, approximately 6.5 million people in the United States – one in 50 – have an unruptured brain aneurysm. Determining whether an aneurysm will rupture is critical to improving health outcomes and avoiding potentially risky and unnecessary surgical interventions.

Michigan Tech research mentor Dr. Jingfeng Jiang and doctoral student Kevin Sunderland worked with a team of neurosurgeons, biomedical engineers, and radiologists across the country to understand blood flow patterns and how they relate to aneurysm growth and rupture. Their method of computational analysis was able to better predict the

likelihood of rupture. The researchers received the Michigan Technological University Bhakta Rath Award. The annual award recognizes a Ph.D. student and faculty advisor whose accomplishments benefit American industry and society and encourages research that meets the nation’s needs through emerging technologies.

The field of mechanical engineering isn’t commonly associated with medicine, but when Michigan Tech graduate student Ponkrshnan Thiagarajan started using machine learning to solve mechanical engineering problems, he realized that the same key ideas could be used to improve the accuracy of breast cancer diagnoses. Along with fellow graduate student Pushkar Khairnar and assistant professor and machine learning expert Susanta Ghosh, the trio developed a new machine learning model that can analyze images of tissues and cells to classify benign and malignant tumors –and measure the uncertainty of its own predictions.

In a health care setting, the model can help save time by classifying images faster than a human lab tech can. And because it can evaluate its own level of certainty, it can flag images for human experts as needed.

“Breast cancer is one of the cancers that has the highest mortality and highest incidence,” says Thiagarajan. “We believe that this is an exciting problem wherein better algorithms can make an impact on people’s lives directly.”

Michigan Tech has also been on the front lines of infectious disease research, and in early 2022 was awarded $4.3 million in federal funds to build infrastructure to better understand COVID-19 variants and other infectious diseases that have the potential for broad com-

munity spread. The funding will support sample collection and sequencing; data processing; storage and sharing; and data interpretation and analytics. As the sole funding recipient in the northern half of the state, Michigan Tech, in partnership with the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, can ensure that diverse geographic areas of the state can be sampled and monitored.

With this award, Michigan Tech was recognized as having the expertise in genomic sequencing, zoonotic diseases, computational infrastructure, and public health relationships to effectively scale up its capacity to address future health threats.

Michigan Tech is uniquely positioned to support health and biomedical science industries in Michigan, and has seen a growing number of faculty and students get involved with human-centered research. To that end, Michigan Tech is making significant investments in the people and infrastructure needed to further grow its education, research, development, and commercialization in these areas – while supporting workforce and economic development throughout the state.

Construction is underway for the H-STEM Engineering and Health Technologies Complex on the Houghton campus, which is on track to open in early 2024. Within the H-STEM Complex, teams from different fields will research and design human-centered technologies such as therapeutic devices, instruments, sensors, and preventative tools. They’ll share flexible, collaborative lab spaces to advance learning, innovation, and prepare a skilled workforce.

The H-STEM complex is designed to meet Michigan Tech’s projected enrollment growth for related degree

programs. With its new state-of-the-art teaching and research labs, Michigan Tech will be a global destination for health-related STEM studies.

The H-STEM Complex will be the new home of Michigan Tech’s Health Research Institute, which is tackling a variety of health-related challenges by bringing together experts in neuroscience, infectious disease, cancer biology, genetics, and health-related imaging and computing. The Institute currently has 52 faculty members mentoring 85-plus undergraduate and graduate students. The Health Research Institute has been awarded $11.7 million in research grants to date, including $8.8 million from the National Institutes of Health.

Biomedical engineering in particular is experiencing rapid growth. Biomedical engineers use engineering principals to improve health care and medicine, and it’s one of the most diverse fields in engineering. Michigan Tech is strongly committed to diversity and inclusion, and is proud that 66% of incoming biomedical engineering students in fall 2022 are women.

Students will work alongside researchers who are developing the next generation of biomedical technologies. Exciting research is currently underway on wireless, implantable microsensors to monitor bone regeneration and to detect bone infections. Wearable microsensor systems are also being developed to monitor health parameters and groundbreaking work is being pioneered in tissue engineering and regeneration.

Michigan Tech offers students the resources, faculty, facilities, and community to help them become the H-STEM leaders and innovators of tomorrow. Their work will create a healthier, more prosperous Michigan and world.

MESSAGE MAKERS From brand-building to clever campaigns, creatives talk projects & trends

By Lynn Geiger

What’s in a tagline, a logo design or billboard campaign? A lot of brainstorming, probably a few bad ideas and maybe even some late nights. But ultimately, all of that creative work ends in slick slogans, eye-catching graphics and memorable messaging. For companies and non-profits that engage an outside advertising agency to craft a public identity, develop a strategic marketing plan or design a social media presence, these can be dollars very well spent.

The TCBN checked in with the leaders of four Traverse City agencies offering marketing guidance, advertising expertise and communication strategy to a range of clients in size, reach and industry. Take a look at what they are up to, and see examples of their work from the last year below.

BRAND TONIC

Jennifer Lake, owner

Top three services: Brand development (messaging and visuals); identity design and development (logo, naming, identity materials); nonprofit campaign creative (theme, communication materials)

Regional clients: The Botanic Gardens at Historic Barns Park, Charlevoix County Community Foundation, Copper Aesthetics, Grand Traverse Regional Community Foundation, Grand Traverse Bay YMCA, Hemming& Wealth Management, Interlochen Center for the Arts, King Orchards, Northwest Michigan Health Services Inc., Old Town Playhouse, Rotary Charities, The Children’s House & Compass Junior High, The Watershed Center Grand Traverse Bay

2022 highlight projects: We were thrilled to partner with Old Town Playhouse last year to revamp their brand messaging and identity. With a 60-plusyear legacy, OTP was ready to refresh their brand to capture the energy and positive impact on the community.

Offering a wide variety of opportunities for entertainment, education, personal enrichment and social connections, OTP is truly at the corner of art and culture — a place where community comes together. Through thoughtful messaging and new visual designs, we guided OTP through stages of brand development, logo design, season materials and an annual report to showcase how community theater impacts not only the cast, crew and audience members, but contributes to the vibrancy of the entire community. Using a mosaic of colors and icons, OTP’s new brand represents a place where all are welcome, and every role is vital to creating enriching experiences.

We also had the opportunity to brand the new school in downtown Traverse City, Compass Montessori Junior High. In a unique and engaged process, we created workshops with the students over 12 weeks to develop brand messaging, naming options, color palettes and logo ideas. With the input from staff, parents, students and alumni, we shaped the identity and brand for the junior high. Being able to guide the students through the process was rewarding and provided valuable insight to the end result.

New in 2023: We are seeing trends in response to the past three years of pandemic isolation. There is a strong need for human connection and for audiences to see themselves in brand communications. We see this particularly in the nonprofit realm. Annual reports and brand messages are already starting to evolve around engagement and inviting people in.

It is no longer just about what the organization does, but how you can engage with it, and why that is important to the greater community. Organizations are more intentional with their communications, and we love to see this connectedness.

FLIGHT PATH CREATIVE

Aaron Swanker, co-founder/creative director; Dan Smith, co-founder/account director

Top three services: Innovative campaigns and branded content; social and content marketing; media and content distribution

Regional clients: Shepler’s Mackinac Island Ferry, Vapur (reusable water bottle), Michigan Broadband Services, Neumann Law, Michigan Nursery and Landscape Association

2022 highlight project: The Michigan Nursery and Landscape Association (MNLA) is a green industry trade association with members in a wide range of Michigan green industry businesses, including several in northern Michigan.

The MNLA supports its members on legislative issues, education, certifications and marketing. The MNLA engaged Flight Path Creative to address marketing and recruiting needs for its members. Through data, social listening, search analytics and other metrics, we developed branded content campaigns to build awareness and address the staffing issues. The media and content distribution drives traffic to a campaign website where visitors can learn more about the industry and directly apply for open positions the members post themselves.

New in 2023: We will continue to see growth in omni-channel marketing and technology. Brands will engage customers through multiple, integrated digital and physical touchpoints, physical locations, websites, social media, apps, etc.

GRAND

BAY PROMOTIONS

Susan Wilcox Olson, owner, co-founder and president

Top three services: Public relations; media promotions; marketing services

Regional clients: TVC-Cherry Capital Airport, National Cherry Festival, GT Pie Co., Mawby Wines, Fustini’s Oils & Vinegars, Novello Health, Iron Fish Distillery, Treetops Resort, Gaylord Tourism Bureau, Great Lakes Winter Trails Council, Visit Keweenaw, several Mackinac Island businesses, including The Original Murdick’s Fudge, Doud’s Market, Sip ‘n Sail, Cottage Inn/ Mackinac House, Wawashkamo Golf Club 2022 highlight project: We are particularly proud of our ongoing work with TVC CEO Kevin Klein securing and maintaining market presence in each destination. Through this initiative, we utilize traditional and digital marketing, public

relations, media promotions and social media outreach. After more than a decade of hard work and in-market and airline visits, we have grown TVC’s nonstop service from three destinations to 17-plus. The growth in nonstop services to and from top destinations has shown to be an important driver of economic health for the northern Michigan region. Working in tandem with TC Tourism, our other regional CVBs and Pure Michigan has been an important part of this initiative.

New in 2023: We are seeing more marketing cooperation across northern Michigan – bringing partners together to make greater impact in important U.S. markets as well as within our region. For example, TC Tourism, Discover Northern Michigan (regional CVBs coming together) and America’s Summer Golf Capital (more than 25 premier golf courses and CVBs working together.)

PB&J MARKETING

Karl Bastian, partner and creative director

Top three services: Strategic planning; creative services; digital and social marketing Regional clients: 4Front Credit Union, Besser Inc., Century 21 Northland, Father Fred Foundation, Grand Traverse Distillery, Northern Building Supply, Stromberg Carlson, United Way of Northwest Michigan

2022 highlight project: COVID vaccination campaign, Alamo Area Council of Governments (Texas). The client wanted to create a positive and informative public awareness campaign to promote COVID-19 vaccinations for populations within its 13-county regional footprint.

PB&J was engaged to help develop a multi-channel community outreach campaign that was unique and played on Texas pride and well-known Texas ‘Tall Tales.’ We developed radio commercials along with concepts and messaging for video, print, digital and social media applications. The campaign succeeded in raising awareness of the need for vaccinations as well as increasing the actual number of people vaccinated within the targeted service area. The campaign won several creative awards, including best of show at the San Antonio American Advertising Awards.

New for 2023: The pandemic has transformed how and where people conduct their careers. New communication tools have created exciting opportunities for advertising firms and professionals to collaborate without boundaries. As a result, PB&J is growing its relationships with clients and partners in new and varied markets, while still serving a strong client base here in northern Michigan.

AD IT UP

Great Lakes Bay Regional Ad Club emerges as industry changes

AD IT UP

Great Lakes Bay Regional Ad Club emerges as industry changes

By Anna Faller

After a prolonged hiatus, Traverse City’s creative community has its own advertising collective in partnership with mid-Michigan’s tri-city region.

The Great Lakes Bay Region Ad Club, comprised of advertising professionals from northern Michigan and the Saginaw, Midland and Bay City region, was born from the need to stay current in an ever-changing field, said board member Karl Bastian, who owns Traverse City-based PB&J Creative.

By Anna Faller

“We started having conversations about creating an extension of the club that continues to serve its (downstate) community, but also grows membership in Traverse City,” said Bastian, who had pursued membership in the downstate group after discovering the former Northern Michigan Ad Club had dissolved during the Great Recession.

After a prolonged hiatus, Traverse City’s creative community has its own advertising collective in partnership with mid-Michigan’s tri-city region.

The Great Lakes Bay Region Ad Club, comprised of advertising professionals from northern Michigan and the Saginaw, Midland and Bay City region, was born from the need to stay current in an ever-changing field, said board member Karl Bastian, who owns Traverse City-based PB&J Creative.

“We started having conversations about creating an extension of the club that continues to serve its (downstate) community, but also grows membership in Traverse City,” said Bastian, who had pursued membership in the downstate group after discovering the former Northern Michigan Ad Club had dissolved during the Great Recession.

Along with several Traverse Citybased members, including Brandon Jenkins from Lake Effect, the regional club aims to connect the advertising community – whose members range from media mavens to experts in graphic art and design – with the social and professional resources for success in the creative market.

“Ours is an industry that requires constant growth, no matter where you are on the spectrum,” said Bastian. “And though you can do that online, there is something to be said for (connecting) with people.”

So far, the collective has hosted two career development functions: Adtober in October, which was held in Traverse City, and the American Advertising Awards, commonly known as the ADDYs, an industry competition which was hosted downstate in early 2022.

“(Events like) the ADDYs are a great way to show the community the level of work being done and how that impacts local economy for the clients and businesses that are here,” said Bastian.

Bastian said that small businesses and freelancers are growing the ad agency market, which is no longer dominated by the corporate agencies of larger hubs like Chicago, Grand Rapids or Detroit.

In response to the morphing field, the club hopes to host more collective events,

like their Adtober seminar at the Botanic Gardens at the Historic Barns Park.

“(Adtober was) a way to network with other people and discover new technologies that are going on in our industry,” said Bastian about the all-day event. “It was very successful; we’ll be doing it next year.”

Distance between the members means socializing virtually will be an option along with inter-club bowling, regular small group meets and the occasional sporting event.

“There are a lot of things we can and are going to do while still catering to the advertising community,” Bastian said, adding that quarterly professional development events will also be added.

“We really want to be more tailored to the way that people are working now and be mindful of what they want out of the club,” he said.

For now, though, growing regional membership is the Great Lakes Bay Ad Club’s first priority.

“The more people we have, the more we can do and the more value we can offer our members,” he said. “For a long time, there hasn’t really been a professional organization that brings us all together – not just to celebrate the work that we do, but also to grow in our profession.

“This (group) allows us to do that.”

“Ours is an industry that requires constant growth, no matter where you are on the spectrum. And though you can do that online, there is something to be said for (connecting) with people.”

– Karl Bastian, owner, PB&J Creative

Ad Club members at a minor league baseball game in Midland.

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DOWNTOWN OFFICE SPACE FOR LEASE

TRAVERSE CITY BUSINESS LEGENDS HALL OF FAME

Meet the new inductees

By Lynn Geiger

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Traverse City Business Legends Hall of Fame. Since 2013, the TCBN has paused to honor business giants, civic and community champions and philanthropists – both deceased and living – who have made lifelong contributions to the economic growth and long-term vitality of the Grand Traverse area. What launched with a 10-member charter class has grown by two inductees every year.

For 2023, our collective round of applause goes to the late Ralph E. “Boots” Wolff, Jr., who was a stalwart supporter of downtown and whose family name was synonymous with pharmacy in Traverse City for half a century, and the late Mary Jean Brick, whose compassion, empathy and can-do spirit improved – and continues to improve – the lives of disabled individuals in her beloved community.

Born in Muskegon on June 18, 1928, Wolff graduated from Traverse City Central High School in 1946 and went on to Michigan State University for his undergraduate studies. After marrying high school classmate Barbara MacIntosh in 1950 and Barb completing her nursing degree, they moved to Ann Arbor so Boots could attend the University of Michigan’s School of Pharmacy. After graduating in 1953, the couple moved back to Traverse City and he began his career at Petertyl Drug.

Fifteen years later and with a family that eventually grew to include six boys, Boots and Barb purchased the Front Street drugstore from founder Milton “Butch” Petertyl – who had opened it in 1932 at the location now occupied by Brilliant Books – and worked alongside each other for many years. When it was time to retire, the couple passed ownership in 1993 to son Jim, who had earned his pharmacy degree from Grand Valley State University. He and wife Dixie followed in his parents’ footsteps – operating Petertyl Drug together until their retirement in 2018, when the store permanently closed.

Past and current Traverse City leaders have noted the key role the Wolff family played downtown, including toughing it out as business owners during several economic downturns when the area struggled mightily, and through the decades when retail business was rapidly shifting to malls.

While being an owner of a vital downtown retail establishment, Wolff was also a founding member of the Traverse City Downtown Development Authority (DDA) in 1979 and served on its board for 31 years, including time as chairman. He is recognized by those who have followed him for helping to create many of the things people enjoy about Front Street and the surrounding area to this day. Wolff was also a member of the Downtown Traverse City Association and an early recipient of its Lyle DeYoung Award for his significant contributions in support of downtown’s business district.

Past and current Traverse City leaders have noted the key role the Wolff family played downtown, including toughing it out as business owners during several economic downturns when the area struggled mightily, and through the decades when retail business was rapidly shifting to malls.

Wolff was active in local and state pharmacist associations, the Rotary Club, the Parish Council at Traverse City St. Francis, and was a Boy Scout leader.

Wolff died on June 1, 2020, in Traverse City, 18 days shy of his 92nd birthday.

Ralph E. “Boots” Wolff, Jr.  “Downtown’s Caretaker”

Ralph “Boots” Wolff, Jr. (1928-2020) took great care of Traverse City – as a pharmacist at Petertyl Drug, and as a respected leader in two organizations that continue to steward the vitality of downtown.

Mary Jean Brick (1923 – 2009) had heart. A lot of it. And, by most accounts, did not take no for an answer. Those qualities, combined with unstoppable spirit and rock-solid faith, took a vision Brick had for a better life for marginalized people in her community and built it – literally.

Inspired by personal experiences with both a sister and a son with special needs, Brick laid the foundation that has improved the lives of adults living with physical and developmental challenges in the area for nearly 50 years.

Under Brick’s guidance, passion and tireless advocacy, the area’s first-of-its-kind Community Living Center opened in 1978 in Traverse City. It was a place where residents could learn daily living skills and grow their independence in a family atmosphere, as well as engage with the larger community.

Born into one of Traverse City’s oldest families, Mary Jean (née Walters) Brick was a daughter of Herman and Clarebelle Walters. Her father was co-owner of Walters & Hemming Plumbing, still in business today. She was trained as a teacher, earned a master’s degree in special education and worked as a regular substitute teacher for more than 25 years. She and husband Robert had six children.

The Community Living Center was the first very large step for the not-for-profit organization known today as BrickWays – a corporation and foundation that serves adults with developmental disabilities through housing and a continuum of support. And it was a very far cry from the large facilities that used to house hundreds, or even thousands, of disabled people – in most cases isolating them from society.

Mary Jean and Robert’s eldest son John ultimately

ended up living at the Traverse City State Hospital (aka Northern Michigan Asylum and the Traverse City Regional Psychiatric Hospital), but Mary Jean desperately wanted better for him, according to family interviews on the BrickWays website.

When some of these large facilities across the nation started to close in the 1970s, Brick started looking and advocating for better living situations to allow for John and others like him to live more fulfilling, dignified and engaged lives. Today, 48 individuals live at the Community Living Center (which became a housing model replicated elsewhere) and five other unique housing situations around town – all dedicated to providing essential support services to residents as well as fostering independence.

“Mary Jean inspired in me the connection that makes BrickWays special today,” said Executive Director Susan Onan-Swartz. “Staff and tenants are family. We don’t have to always get along but we are there for each other. Yes, there are times when it is tough love but the vast majority of tenants and all of the staff feel that they are cared for. It is more like, ‘How can we say yes rather than defaulting to no.’ This is from Mary Jean.”

And Mary Jean’s legacy lives on, Onan-Swartz added, through her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren still serving and living her vision of everyone – especially those with disabilities – being a part of this community.

“His leadership and vision during the first 50 years of Traverse City’s existence have left an indelible imprint on the modern community and its people.”

Robert

He was Perry Hannah’s business partner, but Albert Tracy Lay did something perhaps even more significant: He laid out the 1852 plat map for the town of Traverse City, thus becoming the “founder” of the village.

Tom Deering

“The Butcher

(Turned Entrepreneur)”

He ended up a wealthy busin essman who left his namesake on a beloved hotel in downtown Traverse City, but Howard Whiting will always be remembered for his generosity and enabling others to start their own farms and businesses.

Les Biederman

“Broadcasting Pioneer”

A humble grocer, land owner, buffalo farmer and millionaire, Gerald Oleson established the Northwestern Michigan College barbecue fundraiser and continues to give back to the community posthumously through a foundation he started with his wife, Frances.

Peter Dendrinos

“The Born Leader”

Henry Campbell had the gumption to believe he could open the “largest and most elaborate hotel north of Grand Rapids.” However, his most significant contribution was bringing a waterworks system and electricity to the downtown area.

Frank Hamilton could be described as a reluctant Traverse City visitor who ended up becoming one of its most successful merchants and greatest ambassadors.

Local meat cutter Tom Deering took a financial risk in the 1940s, opening a small market in Traverse City. His 11th Street store would become a seven-store enterprise, employing hundreds of area residents.

“Biederman was like nature, someone once observed, in that he sowed ideas like nature sows seeds. Many of these never took root, but many did.”

– Former Traverse City Record-Eagle Editor Ken Parker

A former all-state football player, Dendrinos launched a pie business that became the city’s largest employer and the top provider of pies to the U.S. food service industry.

“Ray Minervini has changed the landscape of Traverse City and the notion of redeveloping and being stewards of historic properties forever.”

“John Parsons gave numeric control to the world. Not only did he change the world of manufacturing, he helped weave the fabric of Traverse City’s strong manufacturing community today.”

“Bryan Crough led the efforts to not only save downtown Traverse City, but to transform it into the dynamic heart of our region through his tireless efforts, relentless leadership, creativity and balanced perspective.”

Munson’s theories of psychiatry were revolutionary for the times; he did away with straitjackets, used drug therapy and had patients working the farm and growing the food the State Hospital needed. He also integrated social services with patient care. He believed in treating the patients and not just “warehousing” them.

Schmuckal co-founded Slane and Schmuckal Oil Co., a Shell Oil Co. distributor, with George Slane in 1955. Northwestern Michigan College’s University Center is named after Art and Mary Schmuckal, thanks to their work with the college and their philanthropy. In 1999, they formed the Art and Mary Schmuckal Family Foundation.

Frank L. Stulen turned inventor/ businessman John T. Parsons’ detailed instructions into calculations that eventually became numerical control – the automation of machine tools. Numerical control is often called “the second industrial revolution.” Their innovations are the precursor for today’s computer-aided machining, which can make everything from truck panels to custom embroidery.

Wilson, author, Grand Traverse Legends

Gerald Oleson Sr. “The Philanthropist”

A. Tracy Lay “Founder of the Village”

R. Howard Whiting “The Poor Man’s Banker”

J. Perry Hannah “The Father of Traverse City”

Henry Campbell “The Utilities Man”

Frank Hamilton “The Ambassador”

Ray Minervini “The Visionary”

Bryan Crough “The Believer”

John Parsons “The Innovator”

James Munson “The Healer”

Arthur Schmuckal “Mr. Oil”

Frank L. Stulen “The Idea Man”

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Marsha Smith, former executive director, Rotary Charities

– W. Dodd Russell, CEO, Skilled Manufacturing Inc.

– Doug Luciani,former CEO, Traverse Connect

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In 1868, James W. Milliken and his childhood pal Frank Hamilton arrived in Traverse City. Six years later, they opened the Hamilton, Milliken & Co. store, which grew so popular they built a bigger store at 204-6 E. Front St. Milliken’s, as it became known when their partnership amicably dissolved, had a reputation for caring for employees. Milliken himself was known for his “consideration and kindliness.”

“TC’s

Grande Dame of Arts”

Milliken is credited with bringing professional music and theater to the Grand Traverse region as founder of the Traverse Symphony Orchestra, originally known as the Northern Michigan Symphony Orchestra, in 1951 and Old Town Playhouse, originally known as the Traverse City Civic Players, in 1960.

Julius Sleder “The Great Storyteller”

“Julius was an institution. He operated an auto dealership downtown [Grand Traverse Auto] longer than anyone ever has … and was a huge advocate for downtown businesses.” –

Hal Van Sumeren, former president, Traverse City Chamber of Commerce

Judith Lindenau was a Renaissance woman who left a legacy that continues to impact real estate agents around the world. She was best known as the executive vice president of the Traverse Area Association of Realtors (TAAR) and was pivotal in the creation of BORIS, the Board of Realtors Information Service, which launched in 1980 as the state’s first computerized MLS and the precursor to today’s modern online system.

Longtime co-owner of Bartling’s with his wife, Joyce, Rogers was a leader in establishing Traverse City’s DDA and served for many years on the board as well as numerous endeavors that strengthened and propelled downtown Traverse City into a thriving retail center. A former Michigan Retailers Association board chair and member, he was often noted by industry peers for his visionary leadership, impact and mentorship.

James W. Milliken

“The Benevolent Shopkeeper”

Elnora Milliken

Judith Lindenau “Mentor Extraordinaire”

Bruce Rogers “Mr. Traverse City”

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Thirlby is remembered as a pioneer in bringing modern medicine and surgical practices to Traverse City, as well as a patron of post-graduate medical education in Michigan.

Marsh built an automotive dynasty that continues to thrive today under leadership of three of his sons. He is remembered as a visionary and as a classic entrepreneur with a strong moral compass and positive energy who valued family and people.

“TC’s ‘Dean’ of the Michigan Legislature”

Arnell Engstrom was one of the original planners, incorporators and a long-standing trustee for Northwestern Michigan College, the state’s first community college, and was instrumental in sponsoring legislation that supported formation of other Michigan community colleges.

In 1977, Butch Broad purchased Elmer’s, the family-owned company Elmer Schaub had founded in 1956. Today, Team Elmer’s is an industry leader throughout northern Michigan, operating six divisions (asphalt, excavation, concrete, aggregate, trucking and crane and rigging) from 15 locations and employing hundreds of skilled professionals.

Representing the third generation of Schmidt realtors, the Traverse City native serves as CEO of the Coldwell Banker Schmidt Family of Companies and has helped steer the 93-year-old company’s growth from a single office to one of the top three largest and most successful Coldwell Banker franchises in the country. The Schmidt Family of Companies now employs almost 300 people and has 2,000 agents and brokers at 90 offices in Michigan, northeast Ohio, Florida and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Helen Osterlin dreamed of being an opera singer. Instead, she gave voice to countless Traverse City area artists, students, caregivers and projects that continue to impact the region. Osterlin is especially credited as a driving force behind the success of Interlochen Public Radio, notably saving radio station WIAA from closing in 1970 and creating its Community Advisory Committee.

Bob Hilty (1913-2001) was a quiet leader whose visionary touch benefited almost every aspect of modern Traverse City. He influenced the shaping of NMC, decades of growth leading to the Munson Healthcare system, creation of NMC’s University Center and Culinary Institute, founding of the Presbyterian Church, northern Michigan operations for Consumers Power and, most notably, development of Rotary Charities as a philanthropic powerhouse.

Captain Harris “Harry” Boardman (1792-1877) is credited as being one of the first white settlers of Traverse City when he purchased property in 1847 and ventured to lands that had long been settled by the native Ottawa, Ojibwa and Potawatomi tribes. Historians refer to Boardman as a thrifty farmer living near Napierville, Ill. who purchased a tract of land from the U.S. government at the mouth of a river then known as the Ottawa, which flowed into Grand Traverse Bay. That property would become Traverse City.

Dr. Edwin “Ted” Thirlby “Medical Pioneer”

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Bill Marsh Sr. “The Classic Entrepreneur”

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Arnell Engstrom

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Russell ‘Butch’ Broad “People First”

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Ken Schmidt “Legendary Traverse City Realtor”

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HALL OF FAME PAST INDUCTEES

Helen Childs Osterlin “Tiny but Mighty”

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Photos courtesy of Traverse Area Historical Society, NMC Archives, Interlochen Center of the Arts and Tom’s Food Markets

Bob D. Hilty “The Humble Leader”

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Captain Harris “Harry” Boardman “The Pioneer”

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HALL OF FAME PAST INDUCTEES

THE MARKET

Retirement income threats – how should you respond?

When the daily news is filled with discussions about inflation, interest rates, market volatility, and endless other angst-producing events, how you react could make a difference in your financial outcomes. These tips may help you sort through the noise and create an action plan that fits your situation.

1. Evaluate

The first step is to evaluate. Do you have a current retirement income plan that you have been following? If your plan is documented, it is likely that it includes how much cash flow you need to meet your day-to-day expenses as well as for discretionary spending. Pull out your plan and take a look to determine where adjustments might be applied

If you do not have a plan or it has not been updated to reflect your current circumstances, document your assets, income sources, expenses, and debt. Gathering all the information in one place helps clearly define your total money picture. In the process, you may uncover expenditures that can be reduced or eliminated. A few adjustments may be enough to reduce the pressure on your income flow.

2. Retain or adjust

If your plan is addressing your current needs, it can be reassuring to confirm that your plan is working as you had expected.

If your income needs no longer match your income plan, depending on your circumstances, there are actions you may want to consider to get your plan on track. These may include:

• Altering your withdrawal strategy to change the amount in taxes you pay on your retirement income to give you greater spending power

• Reallocating your assets or temporarily reducing withdrawal amounts to address any concerns about drawing down your investments in a down market

• Including inflation-indexed investments or other income-generating strategies in your portfolio

• Adding an annuity with income protection, which may help ensure an income stream that lasts for life, even in the event of poor market performance. A variety of annuities, such as variable annuities, registered index-linked annuities (RILAs), fixed indexed annuities, and immediate annuities, may provide income protection. One of these products may be appropriate for a portion of your assets, depending on your specific needs and risk tolerance.

Your advisor can help you explore how alternatives such as these may fit into your strategy. Indeed, both your tax advisor and financial advisor can be helpful partners in assessing your situation.

3. Periodically revisit and adjust again, if needed

Regular reviews of your income flow and income strategy are helpful to identify if changes are needed in your strategy or to confirm that things are working as planned. These are just a few examples of changes that could help your retirement income deliver on your strategy. Contact your financial advisor and legal and tax advisors to review your specific situation and help address your changing needs.

JULIAN | BLACK

Wealth Management Group of Wells Fargo Advisors

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JOE SHORT, FOUNDER

Traverse City Downtown Development Association (DDA) Director Jean Derenzy has a lot of balls in the air, from shifting the way traffic moves to questions about parking, managing the retail/restaurant mix, events, and the ambitious new unified plan for the lower Boardman River. The Ticker sat down with her to get insights on how it’s all going and what’s to come.

Ticker: We have a lot of ground to cover so let’s get to it. The downtown traffic changes. How’s it going? And why did we make these shifts again?

Derenzy: I think it’s going well. We’re slowing traffic for pedestrian ease. And remember, it also relates to how downtown connects to the larger grid system, and it’s also not just cars but how we are accommodating other mobility pieces. You don’t have to circle to get directly to the east or the west, so it’s a more direct route. And now we’re not using downtown as a pass-through; when it’s one-way, you’re just driving faster right past much of downtown.

Ticker: The intersections just seem a little rushed or ill conceived, particularly at State and Cass, and Union and State.

Derenzy: Yes, that’s some of the feedback we’re hearing, and we will look at amending those as needed, particularly as State and Cass, State and Union, and Front and Pine. We are working with the engineering department to hear what options there are to address those concerns. Minor tweaks like additional signage we could change in February or March; more substantial changes like the intersections of Cass and State or Union and State would likely come in May or June when the weather clears.

Ticker: How healthy is our downtown in terms of the retail mix, and are businesses doing well?

Derenzy: My overall sense is that the retail/restaurant mix is fantastic. It’s very healthy and we are very happy with that makeup. In talking with some of the retailers, the supply chain is still impacting them, depending on who you talk to. But we also need to continue to beat the drum on shopping local, encouraging people to enter that door and enjoy that experience of shopping downtown.

Ticker: Is there such a thing as doing “too well?” I know downtown is very, very busy

DOWNTOWN TRAVERSE CITY’S LEADER On Traffic Shift, Parking, And Future Of Events

3-4 months out of the year with little or no room in many restaurants.

Derenzy: Yes, but we haven’t tapped or looked at the district as a whole. Even when I talk to people from downstate who visit, they say, “what a charming downtown.” But I ask, “did you go to Old town? Did you check out Garland or Hall Streets or Union or Cass?” And they’ll say, “Oh, is there another part past Front Street?”

Ticker: So we need more infill.

Derenzy: Yes! But this also goes back to the focus on having two-way streets to help spread it all out. That’s the focus we’re striving for.

Ticker: We did a survey in 2016 and parking was the biggest issue. Now this year in your own survey people said it’s gotten worse in the past five years. What steps are you taking to fix it?

Derenzy: We’re looking at both parking and mobility, the different modes of transportation. We’re also working with BATA. And any new infill development will take parking off, but will encourage use of the parking garages. People just don’t want to walk quite yet. Did you use the Hardy Deck when you came here today?

Ticker: No.

Derenzy: Why?

Ticker: I’m not sure! But I’m also not sure if this problem only happens here? I’m used to walking blocks to park in other towns.

Derenzy: I’m not sure either. I do know we have to manage expectations and change at the same time. We have to change the experience to make it more of, “I’m ok to walk, and it’s an enjoyable walk.” For instance, an inch of ice on the sidewalk is not an enjoyable walk.

Ticker: What will it look like in five years?

Derenzy: Well, we will likely have three parking decks. We have to change behavior over time. And remember, in our most recent survey, parking was not the number one issue. It was protecting the environmental aspects of our town. And why do you come downtown? Of course shopping, but also the outdoor amenities. So we need to embrace not just the buildings but the water aspects, and develop a different look and feel downtown. You want to make parking a non-experience. And by the way, parking will be a huge issue – real or perceived – in any healthy downtown.

Ticker: What do you say to those who say they don’t come downtown because of the parking situation?

Derenzy: I don’t want to overreact to critics, but I would say to give it another try. It’s part of our community and it’s your downtown that we provide for you. If you say you can’t find parking, we have parking. So is it just too far for you? I’d want to dig into the why.

Ticker: What about the Riverfront plan? What are the next steps?

Derenzy: We dig into a phased approach to implement it. That last 1.6 miles of the Boardman/Ottaway River has been piecemealed for years. So we’re presenting the concepts to the planning and city commissions in February and March and then back to the DDA for a phased approach. That’s the plan.

Ticker: I’m wondering about events. You haven’t done Friday Night Live in a few years, the Chili Cookoff was your biggest winter event and that’s canceled. Just wondering if events don’t fit into the strategy?

Derenzy: Not doing the Chili Cookoff in 2020-2021 provided us an opportunity to look at what’s next and who are possible partners. So we’re exploring a possible cultural event on Juneteenth in the new civic square. But does that replace the Chili Cookoff? No, but we’ve also brought back a comedy festival and have the light parade. So it’s also about how much can we do as a small staff. So it’s not that we’re getting away from events. With Friday Night Live, we’re looking at it with our new experience coordinator to identify different experiences in August for our community that could revolve mostly around music and the arts. The pandemic gave us an opportunity to look at all these things differently.

Ticker: I know there’s been some frustration around the State Theatre being closed, if and how and when it opened, and then also the various iterations of the Film Festival. And now they’ve stopped their comedy fest, while you started your own. Just wondering about your relationship with that organization and Michael Moore.

Derenzy: I’ve not met the newest executive director of the State Theatre and the Film Festival, and I have not talked to Michael in at least a year. I can’t blame that on one or the other; I can call just as easy as he can call.

Ticker: But it’s a huge component of downtown you have zero control over.

Derenzy: Zero. We work with the Opera House and their board. We had Old Town Playhouse down here for the Halloween Walk. So having a stronger relationship with the State Theatre is a need and priority.

By Clark Miller

Changes are coming to JanTec, a custom manufacturer of curved conveyors for the baking, bottling, food processing, pharmaceutical, textiles and warehousing industries. The company, which has been around Traverse City for more than 40 years, was purchased by Rochester Hills-based Ponos Holding Inc. in September 2021.

So what business rationale fueled that decision?

“We didn’t buy JanTec for what it is right now,” according to Troy Curran, who is a Ponos stakeholder and now serves as JanTec’s president. “We bought it for what it can be.”

Curran plans to re-energize (and, ultimately expand) JanTec. To accomplish that, he wants to invest in new technology and establish a more aggressive marketing and sales effort.

Bob Leusby, general manager with 26 years of experience at JanTec, said he’s excited about where all of this might lead. He said the investments potentially could encompass new machinery, updated design software, re-defined workflows and job responsibilities, and new materials in the production process.

“It’s going to be a gradual transition,” he said, “but we’re interested in upgrading our CNC equipment and improving cutting abilities. We are also looking at software packages that interact smoothly with our CNC equipment in the shop.”

He said the point is to expand capacity and stay open to the possibility of making inroads into other industry sectors.

Leusby recently hired two new shop floor workers, bringing the total number of employees to 10.

“The new guys will be fabricators, but we also cross-train,” he said about the team, which includes experienced machinists and a mechanical engineer. “So most of our staff learns to do pretty much every job in the shop.”

To expand market reach, the company has hired a marketing/sales employee whose job will be to re-engage former clients and develop new business. That person will also work on job quotes and handle social media and JanTec’s website.

“He is an important part of the growth plan. He’s also going to get customer feedback, which can help us become more engaged with customers as far as their needs,” Leusby said.

The sales associate will have at least one more important task.

“We don’t know how many businesses we deal with have gone out of business during the pandemic,” Leusby said. “That’s what he is going to find out.”

JanTec has several obvious strengths. It survived the worst days of the pandemic, then went on to have a surprisingly strong performance in FY 2022. Curran says he thinks that was due at least in part to pent-up demand. Another factor, he says, was that many customers started finding solutions to labor shortages and supply chain interruptions, which enabled them to ramp up production. It also helped that JanTec remained relatively untouched by Covid-related problems.

That’s because the company buys American-made products whenever possible. Leusby said he also keeps a close eye on inventory.

“We may order 5,000 parts for items we use in abundance,” he said. “So when we reach around the 1,200 mark, we reissue an order.”

Another advantage is that JanTec can also rely on selling replacement parts, which accounts for as much as 30% of annual sales. That’s an income stream that doesn’t need a lot of tending.

“Customers who need a spare part for one of our conveyers call us,” Leusby said. “We don’t have to go out to find that business. And it’s just one more reason why our goal is to get more of our equipment in the field.”

The Grand Traverse Area Manufacturing Council (GTAMC) sponsors this column. Its mission is to support a sustainable and globally competitive manufacturing sector for a stronger economy; makegreatthings.org.

>> FINANCIAL SERVICES

1 - James Bowser has joined TruNorth Financial Group, a private wealth advisory practice of Ameriprise Financial Services in Traverse City, as a financial advisor. Bowser has 17 years of experience in the financial services industry.

rectal surgery. He has special interests in the surgical treatment of colorectal cancer, inflammatory bowel disease, anorectal disease and hernias. Dr. Hagen practices at Munson Healthcare Traverse General Surgery and Trauma Care and also practices inpatient surgery at Munson Medical Center.

5 - John G. Tazzi has joined the medical staff at Munson Healthcare Orthopedic Institute in Traverse City as a specialist in orthopedic surgery. Tazzi is a board-certified physician assistant.

>> REAL ESTATE

>> HEALTHCARE

3 - Munson Healthcare has named Diana Curran, M.D., as the medical director of the OB/GYN service line, a department within the women’s and children’s service line. Dr. Curran provides visionary and strategic physician perspective on the direction of healthcare delivery for women across northern Michigan.

4 - Edward R. Hagen, M.D., has joined Munson Healthcare as a board-certified specialist in general surgery. Hagen is sub-specialty trained in colon and

6 - Charity Anderson has joined Arch Mortgage North in Traverse City as a loan officer. Anderson has more than two decades of experience working in the local lending and title industry.

7 - Ryan Bilkos has joined CENTURY 21 Northland’s Elk Rapids office as an agent. Bilkos has a background in automotive design and brand experience, along with skills in negotiation, financial analysis and legal/contract analysis. He specializes in the residential and luxury market.

8 - Erika Nita has joined KW Northern Michigan as a Realtor.

9 - Jake Sayre has joined CENTURY 21 Northland’s Elk Rapids office as an agent. Sayre has a background in entrepreneurship from a jet ski rental business on Torch Lake. He specializes in the residential and luxury market.

10 - Thomas Taylor, associate broker at EXIT Realty in Traverse City, was recently recognized with the President’s Award from the Aspire North Realtors association. The award honors a member who embodies the Realtor spirit.

>> OTHER

12 - Elizabeth Mackinder has joined Bay View Flooring & Design Center in Traverse City as a sales associate. Mackinder has more than 25 years of experience in interior design, and her background for both residential and commercial projects includes c ustom cabinetry, built-ins, lighting, paint selections, furnishings, and flooring and tile.

2 - Kelly Town, director of client services and operations at Horizon Financial in Traverse City, recently passed her Series 65 - Uniform Investment Adviser Law Examination administered through the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.

11 - Joe Van Antwerp has joined KW Northern Michigan as a Realtor. Van Antwerp is also a certified home staging expert.

2 // KELLY TOWN 3 // DIANA CURRAN 4 // EDWARD R. HAGEN 5 // JOHN G. TAZZI

1 // JAMES BOWSER

8 // ERIKA NITA

9 // JAKE SAYRE 10 // THOMAS TAYLOR 11 // JOE VAN ANTWERP

7 // RYAN BILKOS

6 // CHARITY ANDERSON

12 // ELIZABETH MACKINDER

Inefficient lighting can drain your budget.

Reducing energy use by up to 70%? That can put you back in control.

Trendway Corporation has been doing business in Holland, Mich. for over 50 years. They know their way around quality office furniture. But when it came time to evaluate their business’ energy use and look for ways to save on operating costs, Trendway relied on Consumers Energy to identify energy efficiency improvements — like advanced lighting controls.

Working together with Consumers Energy, Trendway earned over $23,000 in rebates for installing their lighting controls. And that automated lighting project has reduced their lighting energy use by 70%* — saving them money year after year while helping to meet their sustainability goals.

Are you ready to take charge of your business’ energy use? Learn more at ConsumersEnergy.com/startsaving

BOOK REVIEW

What is the Builders

By Chris Wendel Exchange?

Many of us can recall a coach or mentor whose guidance and advice had an impact on us. I know I often think of teachers, parents and people that took me under their wing at the appropriate time, even when what they said didn’t sink in until years later.

The book “Coach Wooden and Me” written by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is the story of an unlikely pairing that eventually formed a rich friendship. In 1967, Lew Alcindor (as Abdul-Jabbar was known then) was the most sought-after high school basketball player in the country. He made the cross-country move from New York to Los Angeles with a scholarship to play for the legendary coach John Wooden at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA).

At first glance Alcindor and Wooden were an unlikely pair. Alcindor, raised in Harlem, came of age during a tumultuous time in Black American history. Wooden grew up in rural Indiana, a World War II veteran, playing and coaching his way to national prominence. “Coach Wooden and Me” does a tremendous job of explaining how this complex relationship evolved through several decades.

From 1964 to 1975 Wooden’s methods at UCLA resulted in 10 national championships, of which Alcindor was key part of three. With this notability, the book mentions instances where Alcindor was the target of racial taunts which distressed Wooden. While Wooden worked extensively with Alcindor preparing him for his professional career and a post basketball life, the racial tension is a subject they often broached.

The book reveals that Wooden was not always who he appeared to be. He was a different kind of coach, caring more about practice and perfection in the process than using manipulative methods for motivation. Jabbar, for example, has used a unique hook shot that he developed in high school in New York. At first the old-school Wooden dismissed the shot as folly, but over time he realized its value and coached Alcindor to perfect and use it.

After a historic career at UCLA, Alcindor moved on to play professionally. It’s during this time that Alcindor changed his name through his Muslim faith to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. This is the Vietnam war era, and a time when violence against black Americans was rising. During this post-President Kennedy era, there was a battle between those who needed to see change in the establishment versus those who dug in their heels to protect a world they believed in.

After Abdul-Jabbar became a successful pro player, he lost touch somewhat with Wooden. They had different religions, life experiences, and a 50-year age difference. However, during his most difficult moments, Abdul-Jabbar found

COACH WOODEN AND ME

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By Kareem Abdul Jabbar

himself relying on Wooden’s lessons that stuck with him.

For years the two had intermittent communication, but after retiring from professional basketball, the coach-mentor relationship was rekindled. Abdul-Jabbar and Wooden forged a strong friendship. Some of the best conversations took place later in Woodens’ life as he navigated aging and the loneliness of losing his wife Nell. In the end, their connection is so strong that Abdul-Jabbar affirmed that Wooden was his surrogate father .

One of the most interesting aspects of “Coach Wooden and Me” are the discussions Abdul-Jabbar and Wooden had around teambuilding to become perhaps college basketball’s greatest team. Abdul-Jabbar tried to explain to Wooden that a team that excels together is like a jazz band, with different parts that work around a shared melodic theme. Wooden thinks he’s off his rocker, but like he did during his long life, he listened, adapted, and thought through what others said to reach a conclusion.

“Coach Wooden and Me” is a refreshing contrast to today’s big money era of college sports, harkening back to when most student athletes stayed in college for four years and actually earned degrees. Abdul-Jabbar is a gifted writer who articulately describes Coach Wooden through both a vulnerable and heartfelt lens.

Chris Wendel works for Northern Initiatives, a mission-based lender located in Marquette, Michigan. Northern Initiatives provides funding to businesses in Michigan and “know-how” to organizations throughout the United States. Wendel lives and works in Traverse City.

EXPOSURES

Biggby Coffee Traverse City has added a new location at South Airport and Garfield roads and the Traverse Connect Ambassador team was on hand to celebrate the business’s grand opening. The mission of the local Biggby team is to help the community by supporting local charities and organizations achieve success through fundraising, donations and volunteering.

Swingshift and the Stars donated more than $4 million during its 15 seasons from 2008-2022, which included 122 nonprofit partnerships. Pictured are Kristal Flateau and Judy Harrison with Community Impact Partners, High Impact Productions and Flat Cap Ventures. Harrison is the founder of Swingshift and the Stars.

The Ticker held a special Recess of Giving at Habitat ReStore GTR on Dec. 7. While helping support Habitat for Humanity for the holidays, guests of the monthly happy hour enjoyed food catered by Jimmy John’s, beer from Rare Bird Brewery, and wine from Shady Lane Cellars.

Riley’s Candles recently recognized its opening in the Flat Cap Ventures building near Chums Corner. By selling candles and donating proceeds to pay for surgeries, Riley’s Candles’ mission is to save as many dogs who need emergency surgeries to save their lives as possible. Pictured is Riley, a 13-yearold beagle who needed emergency back surgery three times over the course of his life to save him from paralysis. Holding him is owner Josh Hart.

20Fathoms recently hosted the Northern Navigators at 20Fathoms for its most recent meetup. Northern Navigators – a sub-group of Michigan’s Creative Coast – is made up of people who already live here, who have chosen to live here, and who can help newcomers feel welcomed and connected, while offering knowledge of the regional lifestyle, recreation, schools, healthcare, real estate and industry and career opportunities.