TRAVERSE CITY — Arts and local history are neck-in-neck as Traverse City leaders consider who can lease its former library in Old Town.
City administrators gave Crooked Tree Arts Center a perfect score in reviewing the arts nonprofit’s submission to stay in the Carnegie Building. They gave Traverse Area District Library’s proposal for a local history center a slightly lower score.
But both applications are essentially tied, city Parks and Recreation Supervisor Michelle Hunt agreed.
“They’re both very prominent organizations in town who do a lot for community engagement,” she said.
It’ll be up to city commissioners to decide which organization can lease the former library on Sixth Street, Hunt said. In a memo to parks and recreation commissioners, she highlighted the differences between their visions for the building, including the fact that Crooked Tree Arts Center already provides programming there while Traverse Area District Library’s idea was more conceptual.
Library Director Michele Howard said she was surprised to see that city administrators docked TADL’s submission a few points for not including enough information on its credit-worthiness.
That’s because the district library doesn’t have a credit rating to speak of — it hasn’t borrowed money since building its Woodmere Avenue library 27 years ago.
“But I can say that we submitted multiple copies of our audit and it has always been a clean audit,” she said. “We have zero debt right now as a library and our unfunded pension is 92-percent funded, so we’re in a really great financial position to add this building and service to our community.”
Under the library’s proposal, the Carnegie Building would become a community center focused on preserving local history and that of its residents, Howard said. Along with stories from the city’s past, people could add their own by scanning journals or giving interviews.
The Carnegie Building also houses the Con Foster Collection, a large stash of historical artifacts, Howard said. TADL pitched becoming that collection’s caretaker and curator.
“It’s been sitting in that basement for 15 years without a lot of care, so we’re hoping to bring that discussion forward, too,” she said.
Crooked Tree Arts Center proposed continuing its art exhibitions, classes, performances and outreach programs at its longtime home in Traverse City — the nonprofit is based out of Petoskey and has an arts center there.
Much of the center’s offerings are free to attend, and those that do charge admission cost very little, so as many people can take part as space allows, said Kristi Wodek, managing director for CTAC’s Traverse City campus.
City leaders’ decision on the arts center’s future is far from settled, but Wodek said she found it rewarding to see city administrators rank CTAC’s proposal as highly as they did.
“I do think that we have a really solid plan,” she said. “We have 10 years of experience, and we have consistently paid rent and weathered rent increases over the years, so I think the city has a good sense of what it’s like to work with Crooked Tree.”
Wodek said she’s hoping city leaders decide in the arts center’s favor, especially since the nonprofit has been in limbo of sorts while they deliberate on the Carnegie Building’s future. That’s made it all but impossible to plan late summer and fall events, and to apply for grants that may fall beyond the Oct. 31 expiration of CTAC’s lease with the city.
City commissioners decided to ask for proposals for both the Carnegie Building and Bijou by the Bay as part of a deeper examination of how the city uses and cares for the buildings it owns. Past and present commissions scrutinized how much money Traverse City spends on upkeep for these aging structures, especially the Carnegie Building, and how much more maintenance they need in the near term.
BIJOU BUST?
Meanwhile, two applicants for a vacant movie theater and former museum in Clinch Park are hoping for a do-over. Both Studio Anatomy’s and Paper Birch’s proposals for the recent home of Bijou by the Bay fell short of the minimum score for their submissions to move any further, according to Hunt.
Paper Birch’s proposal for a spa and wellness center, complete with indoor pools, lost points because of the extensive amount of construction it would take, Hunt said. That could impact any future city plans for the building’s use.
Kyle Norman, co-founder of Nossa Norman Design Studio and Paper Birch’s spokesman, said the latter group hasn’t seen the city’s scoring rubric and is waiting to see what the city decides.
“We will take this as an opportunity to refine our proposal, continue our work, and be ready for what is next. We look forward to the next opportunity,” a statement from Paper Birch read.
Eugene’s Record Co-op owner Brian Chamberlain hopes to turn the movie theater into a venue for live music and other events, submitted as Studio Anatomy, he said. That would require very few changes to the building’s current setup to offer live events for a wide audience both young and old — and in between.
Chamberlain said he was frustrated to see that city administrators docked or zeroed out points for several scoring criteria that he could have addressed, had they given him the chance. That included submitting information about past profits and losses for the business, a category Chamberlain thought didn’t apply since the proposed business would be fairly new for him and his team.
“It’s just unfortunate that, with the scoring, that we were not able to kind of sit down and go over step-by-step the kind of questions that they have in relation to those categories, because we could’ve, I think, explained it a little better,” he said.
Indeed, Chamberlain and other applicants didn’t hear about the status of their proposals until Hunt submitted her memo for the April 2 Parks and Recreation Commission memo.
Both Hunt and city Manager Benjamin Marentette acknowledged the city’s communications with applicants should have been better.
“I respect the amount of work that they put in their proposals, and that should be honored with good communications,” Marentette said.
Deputy City Manager Deb Allen was in charge of reviewing the applications, and the process was nearly complete when she left on leave following her husband’s unexpected death, Marentette said.
“Some balls were certainly dropped on our end, understandably so given the circumstances, but I do wish it would’ve been different,” he said.
Commissioners could opt to give both Studio Anatomy and Paper Birch a second chance to resubmit, Hunt said. She later added that applicants can send their questions directly to city administrators, and attend city commission meetings.
Marentette said he’ll ask city commissioners how they would like to move forward with the request for proposals process at their April 20 meeting.