Past Economic Development for the only other Bass Pro in Michigan at this point

Governor Welcomes Bass Pro Shops to Michigan, First Tourism Attraction Success Expected to Draw 4 Million

Sunday, April 26, 1998

John Truscott

(517) 335-6397

Governor John Engler announced today that a Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World store will open in the new Great Lakes Crossing development in Auburn Hills. In an effort to focus on tourism attraction, the Michigan Jobs Commission worked to bring the store, which is expected to draw 4 million visitors each year, to Michigan. At a press conference in Auburn Hills, Governor Engler and Bass Pro Shops President Johnny Morris expressed their excitement in bringing the store to Michigan. "I cannot think of a better way to announce our first major success in tourism development than by welcoming the world's leading outdoor recreational retailer to Michigan," said Governor Engler. "I know Bass Pro was also looking to locate in Ohio, but Michigan's great outdoors is simply a much better fit for this company with its long history of enjoying and preserving the outdoors." This is Bass Pro Shops fifth store in the United States. Its Missouri store is that state's number one tourist attraction. Under an innovative economic development deal, Travel Michigan will conduct joint marketing with Bass Pro Shops. Travel Michigan will advertise in Bass Pro catalogs for the next four to six years and Bass Pro will advertise in Michigan's tourism catalog for the next three years. "When those four million tourists come to Outdoor World to purchase their recreational equipment, we're going to make sure they keep right on moving throughout the state of Michigan to enjoy our abundance of recreational opportunities," said Richard Czuba, Director of Travel Michigan, Michigan's tourism marketing agency. The Auburn Hills store is expected to create 300 new jobs for Southeast Michigan.

Several Rough Draft Ideas again for Summit Place and the Shoppes at Summit Place Regional Tourism Attaction and Shopping Center

You can click on any one of these pictures to get them to expand.  Nobody has been sent this link that is not part of the decision making process of the owners of our properties and now the first entity we need to work with to accomplish a project with such an economic impact or ability to change the retail market in the Grand Traverse Region.  Please have someone from the tribe call me and discuss this with me and see if its worth talking about prior to our meeting on September 20, 2011 with Grand Traverse County.  If the tribe is NOT interested in jumping on to make this happen across from their Resort, or in some sort of similar but Maximized layout, then we will be dropping even talking about it and revert back to the simple mixed use SUP with some retail and elderly multi-family instead.  It is up to you, we’ve created all we need to market and get the huge project approved and get the tenants here to make it a reality, but we have to get the zoning, or be well on the way to getting the zoning first.  We can do no such thing as we’ve shown to create enough retail on just our property to get a Bass Pro or Cabela’s or Ikea or Costco.  It will demand the tribe’s participation in making this area all that it can be as a high end resort lodging, gaming, shopping and outdoor activity resort and spa to top most all others in the Nation with its Natural Resourses.  Please call me and tell me if the Tribe is IN or OUT or if you’d like to talk more with the owner of our properties in a timely manner so we know which option to present to the County Sept 20.

Tribal Members please study these two posts which only you are getting and tell us if you want to work with us to accopmlish the big vision with the video and tools we’ve already finished and could work with you and your marketing people to keep it going and get it all zoned and the tenants in place?  Let us know if you want us to pursue the BIG VISION or the small vision because we have gotten to a point already with the township where if we don’t have additional support to help with the bigger rezoning, we are looking to just scale back our request to get a feasible project on Steckley’s land alone.  If we do that, we are just concerned the the opportunity of putting a Bass Pro or Cabela’s or other big box and high end retail on these lands, making Acme and the Grand Traverse Resort and Turtle Creek Casino the Crown Jewel of Tourism in the Midwest and even all of US due to Sleeping Bear Dunes.  Regardless, the additional traffic adjacent your resort would be well in excess of 5 - 6 million people or trips per year that go elsewhere in the region now.  Does the tribe want those people coming to Acme? Are you on hold with you current projects?

Please remember that the way we propose to develop the properties, there would be about 1/2 or less of the surface parking as is shown on the drawings, creating 1/2 the water run off.  We accomplish this by making the mall “walk-out” to the West, protecting people from the elements of the cold and the hot. The shops should all be connected by a small replica steam engine train that brings people throught the project and under 31, back and forth. Elderly can take their power chairs or golf carts, whatever would be allowed by the township for people to take and use the trails and paths that would connect everything.  

Also, just like the disclaimer earlier, these drawings have been cut and pasted from other similar themed projects from around the US, with ALL surface parking and NO under building parking so there are many more things to do to make sure of the feasibility of all of this but the initial indications would seem to be that if the Tribe wanted to help make this sort of thing happen, they would have enough co-tenancy to attract the Bass Pro, Cabela’s or maybe if we were very very lucky, and Ikea, just because in that one location they could cover all of northern Michigan, the UP, Wisconson via the Ferry, and much of Canada, along with even draw tourists that otherwise spend their money just at the bridge, or just at Boyne or Shanty Creek or in Charlevoix, or in Petoskey or at Bay Harbor, that all of those tourists that come to all over those areas from all over the world, will all want to work in at least one day of shopping in what I believe we could make as one of the most green and sustainable environmental shopping centers in the world with green roofed community gardens for those stores that wanted to participate for instance, building the buildings parking into the hill and have walk out level for parking below the buildings for convenience, urban feel and to preserve more green area, produce less run off and create enough open green space to create the central small sized Civic theater for the community and other events! Can you catch the vision yet all?

Also, because 1/2 the surface parking would be gone in the middle of all the larger project on the west, we believe thater there would be enough land in the right place to create a beautiful lawn and garden area with a staging area for smaller events and concerts like a civic center or so, about the size of the Meijer Gardens Amphitheater in Grand Rapids.  The tribe could still have the 10,000 - 100,000 set event facility and race course out by it’s Casino, but this would be smaller and more specialized and easily accessible by the elderly care facility and the entier community.  If the Township would move its Town hall and Community Center there, how cool would that be to have all of those amentities with a park view out front to the bay an a civic amphitheater within a short walk and all the gym and other things left in the vacant building as it sets.

Could the land adjacent to and across the Street from the Grand Traverse Resort possibly the best Regional Mall Site for all of Western Michigan?

Drawings are not to scale, have not been approved by property owners and are for concept and illustration only. They were done by me, a realtor, not an engineer, and for heaven sake cover up peoples homes and stuff, so these sort of plans by no means would be approved without making things fit exactly to the dimensions of the properties out there in Acme.  The site plans I have laid over the aerials are drawings from other project site plans from similar type malls that we believe could be justified being financed and built here in Acme.  With the drawings herein, there are NO representation being made about the feasibility of engineering or financing at this time.

Summit Place Regional Shopping and Lifestyle Center.  Residential portion of this development is not illustrated in this drawing.

First we want to thank everyone that attended our first public hearing presentation to the Township Plnning Commission Monday Night. Please do not stop telling people about how you perceived things went both for the MEIJERS SUP site plan process and the rezoning of our land. We believe there is a much more beneficial project that could occur on our property and the rest of the Land near the Grand Travers Resort if we all want to work together towards it.

This version of the blog with this first post here is ONLY being sent to primary owners of the Traverse City Real Estate application and a select few tribal members.  It will be left here private until about midnight tonight.  I will have to take this post down prior to making the blog public again for it to be full functioning.

As we've stated before, we have not been against the MEIJER from being approved for phase one given all the time and energy the community has invested into it's time with them. Our opportunity for retail however COULD be much larger in scale and be extremely regional in nature because of the character and size and quality of the tenant(s) we might be able to attract to the Tribes already zoned B-3 property and our land and their land on the West side of the road.

 The issue is that if the big draw biggest jobs biggest tourism related tenants commit here they would like to be direvtly connected to the tower and on the east side of the road but not if they, because of their size and magnitude and multiple-million people per year visitors they are not going to go out on an island in retail any more without knowing that there will be significant regional draw retail cotenancy of significant magnitude, plus the draw and connection of the resort and spa plus the connectivity to the entire downtown and bay front areas that Acme Twp has recently put in place.

Please continue to share this blog and our Facebook page with your friends and plan on attending the grand traverse county planning commission meeting on September 20, 2011as you can share there even if you don't live in acme township and share how or region needs this potential draw and regional business for it's taxes and economic impact and jobs regardless of what the Township Planning Commission decided without any serious research into our project and what we are actually hoping it could be.  We could develop NO drawings showing development across our property.

We would like to have the people of the Tribes, Township and County consider, along with the current owners of Lochenheath that we be allowed to purchase the southern line of residential lots in Lochenheath to simultaneously ask for rezoning of our land and the tribes land west of US-31 to B-3 Resort Commercial and that it be subject to our getting site plan approval to put in mixed use elderly care and elderly apartments condos and nursing home facilities facing dock road and backing up to the interior road to Lochenheath and create a buffer between the Resort Commercial attraction and the high end residential elderly element that would be connected for wheelchairs and the sort to the retail from the elderly project.  It would have to be OK with the owners of Lochenheath too, but a high end elderly is a lot better than nothing along the roadway isn't it? The only problem we see with that is because even thought development occurs on Mr. Steckley's property, it will have a mix of residential and the cottages at windward ridge will remain commercial, and the likelihood of the Tribe being able to get B-3 Commercial on their 80 acres without the development going across our property and their's it will be difficult to jump the residential lines that will be marked by our elderly project behind the Cottages, and the 80 acre of the tribe could be impossible to get to convert to commercial.

WE HAVE A WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY FOR US AND THE TRIBE TO PURSUE COMMITTMENTS FROM MUCH LARGER TENANTS WITH TOURISM IMPACT, HOWEVER THEY NEED TO KNOW THAT NOT ONLY IS THERE ENOUGH LAND FOR THEM BUT ALSO FOR CO-TENANCY - A NUMBER OF STRONG, REGIONAL TENANTS THAT WILL DRAW REGIONAL BUT ALSO LOCAL TRAFFIC TO HELP SUPPLEMENT THE BIGGEST OF ALL TENANTS AND HELP THEM ON THE DAYS THAT ARE SLOWER TOURISM DAYS.  THEY NEED TO SEE SIGNIFICANT RETAIL DIRECTLY TIED AND ADJACENT TO THEM!

We hope to again draw to Lochenheath someday but one step at a time. The biggest tourism draw tenant would most likely sit on the corner at dock road an 31 and and built almost as a walk-out building into the hill so that even though it may be multiple storie and very large, the way it could be designed could make it almost hidden to the roads, behind trees nd yet totally have views of the entire bay from if not the parkng lot, at least the 2nd level or even ground floor level of the building. A Bass Pro or Cabelas practically hidden from road view but looking over the entire bay!

Of course the Bass Pro or Cabela's people basically want you to give them the land.  I know it does not make any sense to give them you land east of 31, but what about the way I've drawn it, if we could get B-3 Resort commercial across our lands and the Tribe's 80 acres, we could get the Bass Pro and a Costco or Walmart on their site which would still be more money from selling to one tenant that pays, and the other that doesn't then having NO retail tenants at all because the land can not be zoned commercial 5 - 10 years down the road because the Cottages at windward ridge and our elderly care project are a buffer from our frontage commercial over to the tribes property, which is the most we'll probably be able to get in our re-zoning without selling and getting purchased the "Bigger Story" of huge economic impact and a Regional Mall like none other in Northern Michigan, or a few out lots, strip center and elderly apartments and the Cottages at Windward Ridge.  Which option is it the the Tribe wants to limit itself to?

The last thing our group is trying to do is obtain zoning to try to sell the property for more money to the tribe by holding them hostage with our property or trying to MAKE them buy it now!  All we've been trying to do is in a tactful way say "Hey, you guy's ever thought about this? Together we might be able to get this all accomplished for the Tribe and the Community and end up with a huge Regional Mall within walking distance of your Hotel and a shuttle ride to any of your other facilities.  Unfortunately Rick can not continue to pay the Cottages to hold their property for our rezoning, and he can't afford to NOT get whatever zoning he can right now, regardless of how much more restricted it could be, due to his estate planning, health and simply because he's started the progress and will see it to the end to get some sort of mixed use commercial / elderly project but that will NOT include the Cottages and between the two projects, I am very concerned that would stop the bigger dream for us and the Tribe too we hope, of making this a large retail draw, and get your 80 acres zoned for you so that you can justify if anything giving the Bass  Pro or Cabela's a good deal on your property, but do it with the land that you might not EVER get zoned commercial otherwise, don't give the Bass Pro the East side because its probably too small for Bass Pro anyway and Cabela's for sure, but give them a great deal on the frontage or some portion of the property on the West side and use them as an anchor to bring a couple million people a year to your front doorstep or your resort and connected by shuttle to the rest of your facilities in the area.

We suggest that we would continue the trail set aside area onto the tribes property as much as our and make sure lochenheath, the entire elderly care project we would want to have zoned on the lots that front Dock Road in Lochenheath and create that  high end Elderly Complex that i believe i have tp be the buffer between the Lochenheath homes and our major retail project as it is great for the elderly to live right next to a place like this and they can walk and take wheelchairs over to the malls, and trails and also, it allows us that buffer that gets the ENTIRE TRIBE'S 80 ACRES REZONED FOR B-3 WITH MAYBE JUST A BIT OF APARTMENTS OR ELDERLY OR A MOVIE THEATER IN THE nw CORNER.

Then on the east side you would try to attract the Macy's and above all the cluster of high end restaurants on bars and even an outdoor venue that would be more civic in nature - seating 2 - 3000 for the shows there, but keep the idea of a big outdoor music venue by your casino on trust land for the 10,000 - 100,000 person crowds.  The lifestyle center and smalller Meijer Gardens type Town Center and Village Green overlooking the bay in your lifestyle which atmosphere in the highest point of the area looking over the bay and right across the tops of the retail that they can't even see or have obstruct their views because of the height.

The opportunity exists to make these dreams come true for the people of Acme related to thousands of jobs, millions in taxes and visitors to their now practically non-existent downtown, and MAYBE an"iffy" investment into an area that has already struggled with the previous bankruptcy of the resort and now Lochenheath!  A project like this would turn all that around and get it all selling and leasing and provide thousands of construction and then tourism jobs, and turn the Grand Traverse Resort and the Shoppe at Summit Place it into the crown jewel of tourism and outdoor activites in Michigan nationally and globally. We could also earn upwards of $10 Million dollars in grants if we could get one of these tenants to this location but let me tell you what things are necessary to give us a chance.

1) if we can't get zoning approvals by the end of the year our option on the cottages at windward ridge will expire and that property will begin to slowly develop residentially while it sits primarily vacant.

2) the big tenants we are speaking of will not go there without the sort of regional magnitude C0-tenancy with a retail center that will bring the winter traffic even some times when the tourism doesn't. Traverse City is not really a big enough market although we did try to put a site in place for this tenant on the south side of  TC where there IS adequate Co- tenancy but we could not find the right place even though we optioned one piece from the buffalo people up down there, we let it go.

 They want to be THE reguional draw from Canada, the bridge and even might create enough of a draw for car ferry's ro come to our city, not to mention flights from major cities and possibly even direct from other nations because people from there will find a high quality, high class vacation at and affordable price and visit one of the most beautiful regions ion the planet and stuff will be cheap there and they'll be interested in seeing new American stores they've never visited before.

3) the economy could start to slide down even as Michigan is picking up and we need to get this in place while all the planets could line up like they have with the foreclosure price on the cottages which will go away, the opportunity to get $10 million from the state which we would be a cinch for if we get this, and then if those condos go residential and the 80 acres of the tribe and maybe even our nevergo commercial because of that, there will never be the cotenancy opportunity like this ever again up here in Michigan at such a critically sized and located regional facility to be able too qualify to make the $220 million dollar regional mall and it's shops work financially.

That being said, the big tourism tenants will go to where there is more population like Grand Rapids, outskirts Detroit or even in Canada or Wisconsin instead of Travesre City and our Michigan.

Can we work together as Private Owners, Investors, the Tribe, the local Government, these Tenants, the County, State and all parties to figure out between now and the end if the year if the community wants this regional large draw or not?

All of you following this blog need to check back and view the blog again as we will be posting video of both our presentation PowerPoint to the township and the graphic flyovers of our concepts and ideas created in google earth that no one was interested in even trying o comprehend at the lateness of the hour the other night and that 2/3'rds of the people that had just left weren't really so against our project as long as it doesn't impact the Meijer getting started, which we don't want to be, but at the same time, the opportunity only is available for so long as timing is everything in these big real estate deals that have big economic impact on a region.  There are a lot of politics involved and we all have to put those on t he back burner to try to get what your region and your people deserve relative to shopping alternatives and new construction and retail / tourism jobs.

So stop back and view the hearing and our presentation!

Also please know that we will be appearing before the bounty planning commission the first or second week of September and then the Township board at their October meeting.

The County board can only be advisory, but by putting on a stellar presentation that is even further honed for the time people will actually watch it, if this were to create a big stir across the county, because it is the best potential place to put one of the big tenants like we need to make Summit Place a reality.  We know their requirements, zoning, demographics, financial feasibility, timing etc. We are confident that this tenant as well as several others shown as being most desired in Northern Michigan may possibly come to this site if all so.  It's like if one retailer jumps, knowing others will jump with them, they'll all jump together and Acme has the best opportunity to pull things together with the best location for such a project, at a timely moment in the Region's history.  If our project concept creates a a lot of people from the region to let their County Commissioners know that they think that the Land around and across the street from the GT Resort would be perfect for a regional mall.  Maybe we can get the tenants people want to the area!

Can all my ADMINS share our page with ALL their friends and ask them to like our page and become admins as well so like you they can comment and even add content and share information with the cause whenever they want?

Thank you for supporing us admins!  We need your continued help to get more people involved!