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MARQUETTE -- A temporary structure meant for the Upper Peninsula Rowing Club's boat storage was proposed to be built on Marquette's South Beach causing objections from one city resident.
At a Marquette Board of Light & Power meeting in January, multiple U.P. Rowing Club members presented the board with plans for a 4,000-square-foot storage structure -- along with a 7,000-square-foot parking lot -- on the north end of South Beach, a parcel currently owned by the BLP.
The concerned Marquette citizen, Michael Neiger, contacted The Mining Journal and presented reasons for his anti-boathouse stance.
"The city has a land-use code," he said. "They set it up so the whole area between the lake and the nearest road is not to be built up, it's to be preserved for public use."
Neiger also claimed to have spoken to city officials and reported that "they have some problems with it already" and that the boathouse "raises a number of issues."
However, plans for the structure presented to the BLP by U.P. Rowing Club member Terry Dehring were only a "first draft." Dehring also said that members are currently working through a vetting process with the board and that no official decisions have been made yet.
Plans for the boat storage structure would consist of four 40-foot-long shipping containers and a roof. Two of the containers would be set end to end with the other two running parallel to the first set 20 feet away. In addition, support pillars would be placed along the concrete footing pads to allow the roof to withstand pileup. The roof would also extend six feet beyond the containers for public watercraft storage.
Even with this addition for public use, Neiger pointed out that all of the club's watercraft would be protected from sun damage or degradation by the elements -- but the public's craft wouldn't be protected.
"They're saying it's a public facility and it's really not," Neiger said.
In response to that sentiment, Dehring said, "The U.P. Rowing group is open to anyone in the community and not a private club, as some have claimed. Since starting in 2004, we have taught hundreds of people in our community how to row in shells."
Neiger's final claim is that hauling their 60-foot, 300-pound boats into the water would disrupt people on South Beach, but Dehring says otherwise.
"We would launch and land at an area that is not currently used for recreation. It is to the west of the public beach, a space previously used by the BLP for cooling water discharge," Dehring said. "The area is outside the designated swim area, as marked with the lifeguard buoys."
He also said that the current launch point from Founder's Landing is sometimes populated by sunbathers and swimmers.
"We don't seem to get in the way of each other," Dehring said.
In total, the facility is estimated to cost approximately $150,000, all of which would come from fundraising done by the club itself as well as the Marquette Coastal Rowing Club, with $23,000 already raised.
"We love being on the water and want to share this love with others in the community. One of our goals is to help make the local waters of Lake Superior more accessible to others who enjoy human-powered watercraft endeavors," Dehring said. "This boat storage structure is part of that mission."
Alexandria Bournonville can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 506. Her email address is abournonville@miningjournal.net.