A brand-new dog park in Suttons Bay. A more accessible parking lot at Boughey Park in Bingham Township. A potential overhaul of Grove Park in Leland Township, including new township government facilities. These are a few of the new developments in the pipeline for local parks in Leelanau County. The Leelanau Ticker has the latest on each of these stories and more in our fall 2022 parks report.

Suttons Bay Dog Park

A group calling themselves the Suttons Bay Dog Park Ambassadors is seeking to convert 0.80 acres of Suttons Bay’s 126-acre Herman Park into a dog park with two sections – one for large dogs to play and one exclusively for dogs that weigh less than 35 pounds. As is, Herman Park allows dogs, but they are required to be on leash in accordance with Michigan leash laws. A dog park would create fenced-in space where dogs could play off leash.

Necessary improvements include double-gated fences, doggy drinking fountains, benches, and dog waste stations, all of which the Suttons Bay Dog Park Ambassadors group is seeking to fund entirely through donations and grants. A Patronicity campaign to raise money for the park is currently live, with a total donation goal of $47,500.

Per Liz Mahaney, who is leading the fundraising effort, the project is budgeted to cost a total $125,000. Suttons Bay Dog Park Ambassadors already has $30,000 in seed money “from a generous local family,” with the remaining $95,000 in necessary funds to be split between the $47,500 Patronicity goal and $47,500 in matching grants from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC). The MEDC will match all funds raised through the Patronicity campaign by December 31. As of press time, the campaign had raised just shy of $23,000.

Bingham Township Parks

New improvements are on the way for several parks in Bingham Township, most notably the popular Boughey Park. Located off Bingham Road, that park offers water frontage and beach access on West Grand Traverse Bay, as well as a covered pavilion, picnic tables, playground equipment, grills, and more. Now, the park is due for one more major amenity: a new parking lot, designed with universal accessibility in mind.

At its November 21 meeting, the Bingham Township Board of Trustees voted 5-0 to apply for a $210,000 grant from the state’s new Spark Grant program. Administered by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR), the Spark Grant program will ultimately distribute $65 million to fund community projects around the state. According to the DNR, eligible projects must “provide safe, accessible, public recreation facilities and spaces to improve people’s health, introduce new recreation experiences, build on existing park infrastructure, and make it easier for people to enjoy both indoor and outdoor recreation.”

At the same meeting, the board also voted to apply for $16,000 in grants from the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, as part of the tribe’s twice-annual 2 percent casino revenue sharing allocation. That grant would “support much-needed park improvements and maintenance” in Bingham Township, with the money mainly earmarked “to engage the Child and Family Services YouthWork Conservation Corps” to support cleanup, repair, and improvement work at local parks and cemeteries. The grant application noted that all Bingham Township parks have seen “increased pressure” during the pandemic, with Boughey Park in particular strained beyond its capacity during the summer months.

One plan to alleviate that pressure is an ongoing effort to prepare the newer Groesser Park for regular use. Located off West Bay near East Hilltop Road, Groesser Park offers West Bay frontage less than two miles north of Boughey Park and could feasibly relieve some of Boughey’s traffic. Groesser Park was gifted to the township by a “longtime resident” and is currently an undeveloped half-acre property – albeit, one boasting “sandy shores and a lovely view of Grand Traverse Bay,” per township documents. YouthWork staff have been working in 2022 to clean up the property and prepare it for standard park uses, mostly by “clearing brush and invasive species.” The GTB grant would help fund continued YouthWork operations at the property, including the installation of new picnic tables and improvements to accommodate use by kayakers and standup paddleboarders.

Leland's Grove Park

Chatter has recently broken out on social media about Leland Township “eyeballing” the Grove Park property in Lake Leelanau as a potential new home for its government offices. While that news has sparked some local outcry, Township Supervisor Susan Och assures that no decisions have been made and that Grove Park is merely one potential option under consideration.

“Unlike most townships, Leland Township does not own office space,” Och explains to the Leelanau Ticker. Instead, the township has been renting offices “in various places around the township,” most recently on St. Joseph Street in Lake Leelanau. “The landlord there decided that it was in his best interest to redevelop the property as apartments above office space, so we lost that space.”

Going forward, Och says the township wants to own its office facilities rather than continuing to rent. “Especially given recent real estate trends, renting is not really stable for anyone,” she says. “We calculated that going back into our old landlord’s building and renting the new space at a new rate would cost the township $1 million in the space of 10 years, So it makes sense to be looking to buy something, and we have a committee that has been looking for any place that we could put a township office.”

One part of that search involved investigating properties that Leland Township already owns, which led to Grove Park. That land is township-owned, doesn’t have deed restrictions, and offers 1.1 acres of space. The township recently had the property surveyed, which Och says is the “first step in doing any sort of improvements.” The board will now take a closer look at that survey to decide whether the property could accommodate the 3,200 square feet of space the township needs.

“We’re not just going to eliminate a park,” Och says. “That’s not something that’s in our DNA. We would be redeveloping the park and trying to make the two uses work together.” That redevelopment, she adds, could help solve some of the problems that exist at Grove Park, particularly with deteriorating or missing amenities. Leland Township residents voted down several recent millages that would have funded improvements at Grove Park and other local parks, but any township office plan would require its own millage vote, which Och thinks could open doors for redeveloping existing park features (like the tennis courts and playground equipment) or adding new ones (like public restrooms or a covered pavilion space with free wi-fi).

If the township does decide to target a Grove Park redevelopment, Och anticipates that a vote wouldn’t even take place until 2024, with construction to follow in 2025 if voters approve the project. “We need a permanent space, so we’re going to have to keep moving forward,” she says. “Some of the loudest voices in town are against Grove Park, so I’m challenging them to say, ‘Okay, let’s find someplace better.’ Grove Park is not my first choice either, and we know the voters are going to have to support the project no matter what we do. So I’d love it if someone came forward and said, ‘Hey, I think I might have a parcel that will meet your needs; let’s talk about a real estate deal.’ That would be great.”