Traverse City

[egrguy]

What's Traverse City like at the end of September? Im thinking of maybe heading up for a weekend around the 21st. Im assuming the heavy majority of the toursity folk have left; is this correct?

Anything going on?

Thanks!

[Ka3kab]

The weekends can still be busy around here, that probebly being the one of the last busy ones, except for when fall colors peak around the first and second week of October. As for things to do, not really much in the way of touristy things. Boat rentals/parasailing closed up this past weekend, although golf courses are still open (at really discounted greens fees ) and the wine tasting places stay open all year. But as far as crowds go, they are much smaller and to be honest, a bit older which is neither a good or bad thing.

[egrguy]

Hmm... is it still the summer rates then? It seems tons of places are already booked and the rest are all over $100.

[Ka3kab]

I'm not positive because I have never worked for a hotel, but it seems that the chain hotels lower their rates to around $100 or lower but the locally owned places (at least the nicer ones, Grand Traverse Resort, Bayshore Resort, Cherry Tree Inn, etc.) tend to hover around $125-$150 until winter rates kick in around November. I imagine that it has to do with the fall color tours.

Now, full disclosure here, my Girlfriend does work for a hotel in the area and believe me, the $129.00 rate is much lower than the $189.00 they were charging just a week ago for a room without a view, no hot tub and 1 or 2 full beds.

[egrguy]

Two new eateries eye openings in TC this October

I found this when I was looking for places to eat at in TC. Pretty neat, and Im glad to see that both are opening up DT.

I will be heading to TC at the end of the month. I was there last in May of '06. Anything new I should stake out? Good local restaurants?

Thanks.

[Ka3kab]

Bubba's on Front St. and The Blue Tractor on Cass St. downtown are fairly new, they may have even been open in May '06. Bubba's and the Tractor both offer pretty normal fare. A couple of exeptions are bubba's gigantic burritos and the Blue Tractors huge plates of macaroni and cheese. Friggin' delicious. Other than that, there is a new Mexican restaurant on Garfield called Agave. They have really good tamales. A couple of chain places have opened also (BOOOOO!). Hooters and something else. Hooters is out on 31 near 4 Mile and something else opened in the GT Mall, Garfield's, I think. Dammit I'm hungry.

As always, there are a ton of choices for food here. Hope you enjoy.

[dtown]

I liked The Sassy Sandwich.

[Ka3kab]

It's been a long time since I went out and snapped a few pics of town, so I thought with it being 85 friggen degrees in the middle of September, why not.

I have a few shots of the new Bank of Northern Michigan (BNM) building in here. It is still not finished on the inside, but you can finally see what it looks like. I'll start with them.

The rest are just some randon shots walking around downtown and in the Open Space Park.

[dtown]

Cool pics. That bank didnt turn out too bad looking. Im liking that building.

[Ka3kab]

Here are a few more. The first couple are of the Zoo being demo'ed. Couldn't really get in too close, the fence is still up, and they really haven't tore too much down yet. It is going to be a little wierd with it being gone. It's still wierd with the power plant gone, but its not like the power plant served much purpose anymore. For those that didn't know, it was only fired up (it was a coal fired plant) during really hot summer days when the power grid was near capacity. But the zoo, come on. I hope that they don't just turn it into more parkland. That may sound a little funny, but that whole side of the parkway is parkland. I'm not hoping they develop it commercially, but something else should go there besides more grass and trees. Maybe an amphitheater or skating rink, or something like that. Ok, enough. Here are the pictures.

[dtown]

Yeah, an ampitheater sounds cool. a plaza of some kind

[Ka3kab]

So I was driving out to Bellaire yesterday and came up M-72 East. As we got closer to the casino in Williamsburg I saw something poking out of the sky. Sure enough, the Hotel is practically up, although nowhere near completed. I had forgotten all about it and therefore did not have my camera with me. I will go out there this weekend and put up some pics of it. The thing about the hotel though is that it is right next to the road, pretty far away from the casino itself and they took out some parking lots and put up this god awful looking amphitheater. That looked completed, but I really, really hope not. I was pretty hideous looking. I will show you this weekend.

[dtown]

Cant wait to see...kind of. Hopefully its not too bad.

[Ka3kab]

Ok, so I didn't get out to Williamsburg today. I had to take my girl over to the State Hospital to look for leaves for a leaf collection. Boy, do I miss elementary school. So I took some pictures over there instead. Hopefully though, I will be able to get back over there to the casino soon.

Most of these pics are of the more dilapidated buildings still sitting over there just waiting for some help. I understand that it is coming, just slowly. There are some of the buildings that have been finished. Anyway, enjoy.

I have to be honest, being so close to halloween, some of these places were pretty creepy even at 2 in the afternoon.

[Ka3kab]

Just all kinds of bad news coming out of Traverse City today.

First off, there was snow on the ground this morning. It was a nice, long and warm summer and most of fall, but I am just not ready for this. Damn you warm weather.

Also, Federated Properties asked the city on monday for another extension on thier special land-use permit, a one year extension, which means they are not any closer to starting than they were at the beginning of this year. Also, it looks as though it will be a scaled back version (this is their ten story project at 145 W. Front St.) althogh they did not specify exactly what would be scalled back, i.e. height, parking deck spaces, so who knows. To be honest, I will be shocked if this thing ever happens.

And last but not least, the good morons of Traverse City voted the entire City Council out of office yesterday, exept for one, because of the whole Federated mess. For those that don't know, the old council was probebly just as bad and none of them wanted the building or deck because it used public money. So Federated went to the county to get the money from the brownfield fund, which the county was willing to do. So how this was the city's fault is beyond me. But basically what it boils down to is that while Garfield Township continues to grow (in the form of sprawl) the idiots in the city don't want any change or apparently anymore residents and build on property that sits vacant with an old car dealership (that moved to Garfield Township) and looks like crap and is a very lovely eyesore on probebly the entire west side of downtown.

Good job fellow Traverse Citiens, good job.

[dtown]

What idiots. They want it to be a "small town". Well, damn it, it can't be anymore. Its not like it was in the 50's. If you dont want to destroy all of the beautiful countryside in the area, then you need to build more densely, taller, and in the city!

Damn, i hope that project isnt scaled too much. Hopefull they just lose some parking and have more occupiable space or something.

Edited November 8, 2007 by dtown

[wertent]

ugh! There seems to be a group of people who what the town to stay like it was 40 years ago, sorry people but your going to lose businesses from Downtown if you restrict what they can do with the property they own..... rumor has it if they dont build the parking garage on the federated property, a CVS type store will end up there which will be down right ugly

[dtown]

OMFG, no! That would be just about the wost use of a great piece of property.

[Ka3kab]

Yeah, that would make sense.

[Ka3kab]

Here is another article from the Record-Eagle about the Federated site at 145 W. Front St. Again they don't say much about what sort of changes may be made, but this time they said it was likely that both parking spaces and building size would be different.

[Ka3kab]

Even if you guys on this board don't like Michael Moore's social or political views, you can't help but like what he has done to the State Theater in Traverse City. It Opened in 1917 as the Lyric Theater, but was gutted by fire twice (1923 and 1947) and was rebuilt in 1949 as the State Theater. It stayed open until the 70's and underwent some pretty bad renovations since. The balcony was taken down and the paint and murals inside were pretty bad. It opened again in 1996 when the Interlochen Center for the Arts bought the property. They were going to do a $6.9 million renovation on it but that never actually happened. So even though it was considered "open" nothing ever happened there. Rotary Charities of Traverse City bought the place in 2003 and also planned to renovate but again nothing happened.

Then along came Michael Moore who used it for the Traverse City Film Festival during the 2nd and 3rd years. Apparently, he bought it from Rotary for $600,000 and finally renovated it.

Now it is set to open on November 17 with the American Premier of The Kite Runner. I haven't been inside, but I understand that they rebuilt the balcony and have redone all the seating. It should be pretty nice and it will be very cool not have to go to the stupid friggin' mall to see a movie.

Note: Good lord, this sounds like an ad. I promise that it's not.

[egrguy]

I had heard he was involved in the project for the theater and that's awesome. It certainly adds to the area. Is there any connection to why TC would have the premier of Kite Runner? I didn't know if any Michigan connection there.

[Ka3kab]

Not that I know of either. From what I've read, it's mostly because of Michael Moore's connections. There will also be some other premiers, some national and some Michigan over a four day span beginning with opening night.

This article from Northern Express Magazine goes into more detail.

[dtown]

I noticed that the State was lit up when i was up in TC over Thanksgiving. Now I know why.

Will they be showing like big hollywood films or just independent films?

[wertent]

I noticed that the State was lit up when i was up in TC over Thanksgiving. Now I know why.

Will they be showing like big hollywood films or just independent films?

I think they are showing mainly Indy films and on saturday they had the St Francis football game on the big screen