Mike Angeli, city manager, city of Marquette

MARQUETTE — Just how important is Lakeshore Boulevard to Marquette residents?

For over five years, city staff has discussed relocating roughly a mile of the scenic route along Lake Superior shoreline since the road between Wright and Hawley streets is closed frequently due to weather-related events.

“I don’t think it’s any secret that Lakeshore Boulevard has been suffering some severe weather damage over the last few years,” said City Manager Mike Angeli. “We’re slowly reaching a level where it’s almost unusable as a traffic route. We may be there now, but I won’t know until the snow has melted.”

Angeli said it typically costs the city anywhere from $3,000 to $6,000 to clean up after each event.

According to city documents, the annual average maintenance of that part of the coast has cost just over $767,000 over the course of 10 years.

The Marquette City Commission held a work session Thursday to discuss the Lakeshore Boulevard Relocation and Coastal Restoration Project, which is forecasted to cost between $11 million to $12.3 million. The project will elevate and shift the road inland roughly 300 feet, said City Engineer Keith Whittington.

Over the years, the commission approved an initial design after a lengthy public process, documents state. The design included relocating and restoring the road, adding a stone armor along the lake that would be used along with dune/swale restoration. Also proposed was to create a multiple-use pathway separate from the road, boardwalks, lookout spots with parking and a roundabout at Lakeshore and Wright Street.

A modified design for the project was presented Thursday and has the addition of a sand or cobble beach and underwater erosion protection.

In the past, the city tried to obtain funding from U.S. Army Corps of Engineers through multiple Section 14 requests, but all were denied.

However, the Superior Watershed Partnership in partnership with the city was recently awarded a grant of $2.5 million from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation-National Coastal Resilience Fund. Angeli said if the city wishes to use the grant monies than it would have to match the grant about $3 million.

He said money could be taken from other projects on the Capital Improvement Plan list, which includes various road projects throughout the city, among other items.

“If you want to do Lakeshore Boulevard, it’s going to eat into a lot of other projects,” Angeli told the commission.

Another option is to borrow the money outright, which he claimed isn’t the best route.

There are currently a few pending grants through the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, and another through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as well.

Currently, there has been interest in the Cliffs Dow property that runs along Lakeshore Boulevard from a couple potential buyers, Angeli said.

If purchased, for a price that has not yet been determined, the city could use the monies captured from a brownfield plan to put toward other debt or match other grants, Angeli said.

“If we include a brownfield plan in to that development, whatever it is, that can be used to pay off that $3 million that we borrowed to supplement this plan, or any other future matches we have to apply … as opposed to straight out of our general fund or some other funding sources,” he said.

In the early 1900s, Cleveland Cliffs Iron Company developed the property and produced pig iron at the site for about 30 years. Dow Chemical joined with Cleveland-Cliffs, forming Cliffs-Dow Chemical Company in April 1935. The property sat idle until the city purchased about 77 acres of the tract in 1997 for $1 and sold off parcels on the north and south ends, leaving the current 46 acres.

After years of monitoring the former Cliffs-Dow industrial site, the city started seeking requests for proposals from interested investors for future residential and commercial development earlier this year.

The city has worked with the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality over the last 12 years, along with attorney Richard Baron and TriMedia Environmental & Engineering Services, to do some ground metering. According to Dennis Stachewicz, director of the Marquette’s Planning and Community Development Department, around 300 tons of tar material was removed from various “hot spots.” He said most of the contaminants are byproducts of residual tar product.

“It’s not something that can’t be overcome,” he said.

Mayor Pro Tem Sarah Reynolds said although she knows how much Lakeshore Boulevard means to residents, there are many projects that shouldn’t be placed on the back burner if the city were to move forward with the project.

Even though the project has been presented to the public in prior years and received little negative feedback, Commissioner Jenna Smith said the project is an expensive one.

“A lot of folks that I’ve talked to say that this is a lot of money,” she said. “Do we really need a road there? I know we’ve already gone through the public process but I’m just saying there are people in the community that maybe want their residential street fixed rather than Lakeshore Boulevard which they drive down once a month.”

Angeli said the city can also leave the road as is. However, if the city doesn’t accept the grant, he said it could affect future applications. He said he’s hoping to bring the matter to the commission by the end of March.