TRAVERSE CITY — Developers could soon get a shot at city-owned property in the heart of Traverse City, but city leaders must first refine a request for their ideas.
On Tuesday, city commissioners will answer three questions city administrators say are essential to drafting a request for proposals (or qualifications, depending on what they decide). City Manager Benjamin Marentette said the idea is to keep the request as open-ended as possible, while laying out some goals the city wants to achieve.
“Those are the three questions that I think will really get to the heart of helping us shape an RFP or RFQ, enough such that we can then essentially go out to market and see what types of developments folks might propose, then gain the benefit of public input when those come back,” he said.
ShoreNorth Development owner John Socks previously told commissioners he wants to build a parking deck, apartments and first-floor retail on land the city owns along State Street between Pine and Union streets. Two of six floors in the 534-space ramp would be public parking, while the rest would be leased. Income from that would finance the project, and rents for the apartments would be as close to the 80-percent area median income range as possible.
Commissioners later agreed to Marentette’s recommendation to request proposals from any developer interested in the property, including Socks.
Mission North Principal Rob Bacigalupi — also the former Downtown Development Authority executive director — worked with city administrators to draft a framework for such a request, Marentette said. The city will pay him $7,140 for consulting, which potentially could include helping to evaluate the proposals once they’re in.
But Bacigalupi highlighted a few unanswered questions before the proposal is ready: What city goals do commissioners want to achieve by developing the land, and are public parking and attainable or affordable housing among them?
Mayor Amy Shamroe said parking was the city’s goal for this block for years — going back to at least the mid-2000s, according to Record-Eagle archives.
But that might not be what this city commission envisions there.
“If that can be included and part of what we like to see included is help with the parking in this side of town, then that’ll be what the commission decides at the end of the day,” she said.
Shamroe said she thinks a bigger question will be what kind of housing commissioners want to see on the property. Since the city owns it, it can place deed restrictions on whatever a future owner or lessee does with it, including requiring affordable housing.
Commissioners will have to consider that in the context of the millions the city already spent to acquire the land, and decide how — or if — any future use needs to pay that back, Shamroe said.
Traverse City got the land in a swap with Socks Construction Company in January 2023, paying nearly $6.6 million for five parcels along State Street. In exchange, Socks bought city-owned land at West Front and Pine streets for more than $4.9 million.
Formerly Grand Traverse Auto, then a parking lot, the city bought much of the land at 145 W. Front St. in 2016 for $1.3 million from a Federated Capital-owned LLC. Then in 2022, the city bought a strip along West Front not included in the first sale for another $1.25 million from the same owner.
Traverse City paid another $1,023,000 for a former dry cleaner on Pine Street — now demolished — and a tiny parcel behind it in 2020.
While Socks previously suggested buying or leasing the property along State Street for $1 to ensure the housing built there rents at below-market-rate, Shamroe said she couldn’t support that, even if doing so would put the property back on the tax rolls.
“Could I see us doing it for a lot less than for market rate of the property, with the right incentives and meeting of public need? Perhaps, but that is definitely something we’ll have to weigh in on and figure out how that looks through the finances of the city,” she said.
Marentette said it’s possible commissioners could reach a decision on the request for proposals or qualifications Tuesday. That would set in motion a process he anticipates could lead to commissioners deciding on a proposal in June.
Hopefully that would give enough time for any developer to access $800,000 in property assessment grant money from the state Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy that expires in August. The city potentially could ask EGLE for an extension, but Marentette said that might not be necessary.
“We may be able to move along at a pace that doesn’t even require that conversation,” he said.
If you go What: Traverse City Commission meeting When: 7 p.m. Tuesday Where: Governmental Center, 400 Boardman Ave. How to watch: Cable ch. 191 or online at www.tacm.tv/GovTVNow.asp and www.facebook.com/cityoftc {related_content_uuid}783109c8-f32c-4633-9096-8fa6cee67683{/related_content_uuid}