Farm Club is eyeing an expansion that would add a new farm market building, along with expanded parking and more space for food storage and preservation. The Elmwood Township Planning Commission approved the project last fall, but will take a second look – and consider a one-year extension for the project – at a public hearing on Tuesday, September 17. The new public hearing was prompted by Farm Club revising some aspects of its plan since the project was given the greenlight.

An expansion has been in the works for over a year: Last August, the business received a $100,000 Value-Added and Regional Food System grant from the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (MDARD). MDARD’s announcement of the grant stated that Farm Club would use the money for “expansion of processing kitchen and farm market with produce preservation, bakery, grain mill, pasta, and tortilla production.”

Last October, Farm Club brought the project before the Elmwood Township Planning Commission, seeking a special use permit (SUP) and site plan review (SPR) for a new farm market building and expanded microbrewery operations. Specifically, the application called for the construction of an approximately 1,750 square-foot single-story building on the property to house a new bakery and farm market.

On the microbrewery side, Farm Club actually already has expanded those operations, via an outdoor bar the business added in 2022. But according to township documents, that structure “was installed without any permits from the Township or County,” and couldn’t be formally permitted after the fact because the township zoning statute Farm Club went through to secure its initial permits in 2018 changed the following year.

Some background: Farm Club was approved as an “Agricultural Commercial Enterprise” at a time when that zoning definition listed uses like winery, brewery, and distillery. A 2019 zoning rewrite removed those uses – which, per meeting handouts for the forthcoming public hearing, “are still allowed [in Elmwood Township], but as a separate use outside of the umbrella of Agricultural Commercial Enterprise.” Farm Club sought an SUP/SPR last fall in part to secure new approvals for its microbrewery operations – including the unpermitted outdoor bar space – so that they would no longer be considered “pre-existing, non-conforming” uses under township zoning and could be expanded in the future.

Planning commissioners unanimously approved Farm Club’s application last October, following a public hearing that drew no public comment. Now, though, the business has come back seeking updated approval for the farm market component, which has changed slightly in the past 11 months.

“In the time since the previous plans were approved, additional design work for the farm market building led to it being enlarged and moved slightly from its previously approved location on the plans,” wrote Dusty Christensen, a landscape architect with Mansfield Land Use Consultants, which is working with Farm Club on this project. “The approved building footprint size is 1,756 S.F. and the proposed footprint size is 1,995 S.F. The proposed location of the farm market building has been shifted west of the previously approved location, which allowed for the structure to take advantage of grade changes on the site and include a walkout lower level for storage and food preservation activities.”

If approved, the farm market space would be constructed west of the existing 5,000 square-foot Farm Club building, closer to South Lake Leelanau Drive. The relocated and expanded structure, per Christensen, would support Farm Club’s need to “preserve and store produce for future use.”

Based on township zoning, both the shift in location and the expanded size of the farm market building represent “major amendments” to Farm Club’s approved SIP/SPR, triggering the need for new approval. That approval also demands a new public hearing, which will be held as part of the planning commission’s meeting scheduled for Tuesday at 6:30pm. Farm Club’s application and new plans can be reviewed here.

The Leelanau Ticker reached out to Farm Club owners Gary Jonas and Nic Theisen; Jonas declined to comment, saying that he and Theisen “are not ready to let the public know about all the details” of the project just yet.

Some of those details might relate to planned future phases of Farm Club expansion, which are hinted at in Mansfield Land Use Consultants documents included in next week’s commission meeting packet. While all current and proposed Farm Club operations – including the proposed farm market space – are contained on an 8.97-acre parcel owned by Farm Club parent company Field La Femme LCC, Gary and Allison Jonas own an abutting 31.5-acre parcel that could be used for future expansions. A map of the planned project outlines space on that property for a “future phase cider apple orchard” with approximately 500 trees, a future growing space that would be used for “mixed annual and perennial production” – among other crops – and a “future area for bees.”