The Leland Township Public Library will replace its near-50-year-old seawall this year, the library announced in a press release this week. Construction is tentatively slated to commence in the spring, with the library vowing to “minimize the disruption to boaters and Cultural Campus users during the busy summer months,” per Library Director Mark Morton.

The Leland Library – and the rest of the Leland Cultural Campus, which includes the Old Art Building, the Leelanau Historical Society & Museum building, and the Fishtown Preservation Society – sits on the shores of the Leland River. A key part of the property is the seawall, which was built in 1975 alongside the then-new library. That seawall has been in structural decline for years, and in 2020, an engineering study “identified an eventual structural failure of the seawall,” according to a press release issued by the library Wednesday.

Now, Morton says replacing the seawall “has become our top priority for the New Year.”

“If the wall were to fail, we would lose a significant portion of our lawn and the river would threaten the foundations of the Leelanau Historical Society Museum, not to mention the potential environmental impact of large amounts of silt going into the river,” Morton said.

According to the press release, the library has recently “engaged design engineers and construction managers to replace the wooden wall with a steel structure designed to last over 100 years.” So long as the library can secure funding for the project – a process that is currently underway – construction will move forward this spring. The project is estimated to cost $900,000.

The seawall and its boardwalk provide a popular spot on the river for boaters to tie up their vessels and visit the library, the museum, the Old Art Building, or other Leland attractions. While Morton’s hope is to minimize disruptions to those boaters or other users of the seawall, he cautioned that some impacts might be unavoidable.

“The failure of the wall would be a severe blow to the community and the environment, so we are moving ahead as fast as we can regardless of the disruptions,” Morton said.