The City of Ludington Daily News (COLDNews) alerts us to a proposed meeting facility in their article Event Center Planned for Downtown Ludington.  Being that it's scheduled to occur in the shadow of the SS Badger, they are using the "downtown" term rather loosely.

"The Ludington Planning Commission will consider a special land use permit to allow for a 300-person event center at 602 S. Rath Ave., according to an agenda as a part of the city council meeting packet.


Richard Craig of Craig Architects in Grand Rapids, on behalf of Jeff and Jean White of Fischers, Indiana, are proposing the event center, called “The Lake House” that will overlook the Pere Marquette Harbor. The preliminary plans were enclosed as a part of the Tuesday, May 1, regular planning commission meeting.

“The proposed use is to be an event space with setting for up to 300 people with associated catering facilities to be used for wedding receptions, business meetings, etc.,” Craig wrote to Carol Ann Foote, the city’s zoning administrator. “We seek to take advantage of the view of Lake Michigan. This use seems to be consistent with the ongoing development of the waterfront and will provided a much-needed community asset.”


The Whites bought two adjacent parcels of land — one 1.67 acres and the other 0.33 acres, which includes Maritime Drive — from Robert Manglitz, owner of Lake Michigan Carferry." [END of E-article]

Conspicuously absent from the article in the COLDNews and on the City website is that this particular plot of acreage had already been earmarked last summer to become a home for 16 maritime cottages as related in Maritime Cottages Coming to Ludington?

A special Facebook page was actually set up for these proposed cottages (Maritime Cottages Facebook page) where they told the public on September 20 that they only needed one more commitment to buy in order to move forth with the development.  Apparently, that last one never came; that has been the last post on that site, and the bold pronouncements made concerning these cottages will not come to fruition.  

Some clue as to what happened may come from the cottage company's lack of progress in Manistee.  Over the course of last year, this builder never finished two buildings set up in Manistee's downtown until this year, despite his intentions to get that project done quickly.  One other clue is in the councilor packet already linked to on p. 107 in the fine print of the contract between buyer and seller:  

The Virgin Soils referenced is Virgin Soil International LLC, whose Facebook page and website both seem to be untended since September and their enthusiastic huckster, Brice Bossardet, seems to be working more as a realtor for existing houses and has dialed back his ambitions for maritime cottages in Manistee and Ludington.

According to the paperwork, the meeting facility purpose by the Whites is now the first in line to get the property, without any additional claims to other parties waiting in the wings.  It seems rather odd as to why the public isn't better informed as to why the VSI LLC deal fell through and what it might indicate to Manistee's citizens as to whether there will be any more buildings erected there.  

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Will there be adequate parking for an event center with a capacity of 300 people?

Looks like from the initial plans their might be parking for 80 vehicles.

A quick rule of thumb is one parking space for every 2 persons attending. So there will be inadequate parking from the planning stage?

How do they propose to address this?

Do they have permission to park vehicles on that strip of State of Michigan land?

What about parking on carferry property?

Guess you could factor in parking on the city streets. Might annoy the neighbors. Tough luck for youse guys.

Will their be some sort of barrier between the adjacent properties? A picket fence? An earth berm? Chain link and razor wire?

Harbor View Marina right next door has 130 parking spaces for their 150 capacity event center. Of course they have to allow for marina parking at the same time. There are times in the summer when their parking lot is full and spills over unto the street. So they probably will not be amicable to sharing their parking lot.

Will they also have a water craft to take their guests on a cruise of the harbor?

Also will the smoke from the Badger cause any issues?  How will they address that?

The only other concern is that this gets built and it isn't the success the owners envisioned so they end up putting it up for sale and the city comes along and buys this out.  That would be a nightmare.

Anyway I wish them luck with their endeavor. Hoping it is successful beyond their wildest expectations.

Good point about COL buying once it doesn't succeed.  Which I doubt it will.

I hope many of these issues are discussed openly and honestly at the next Planning Committee meeting (May 1st at 6:30).  The point is well taken that the parking scheme illustrated suggests this venue will have limitations similar to Harbor Front Marina for maximum occupancy due to parking, of which it will have less available than HFM.  Ergo, both places will offer the same effective service, to the same amount of people, in roughly the same location.  The new place will be across from a sewer lift station and next door to the SS Badger, HFM offers a scenic marina vista and quick access to Waterfront Park .

HFM already has been established and has alternate sources of income in their marina activities, including potential funding by public agencies; they will be able to vigorously and aggressively compete with their 125 and 40 people capacity clubhouse rooms, should they want to.

A lot of good points raised here. Thanks for the post X, another great job of getting information out. Why in the World would Ludington need another event center. This isn't Grand Rapids. There are plenty of venues available for get togethers now in Ludington. The parking is another serious issue. Ludington's Stupes are in the process of eliminating 60 or so parking spaces where the Ludington Ave. west end money pit is to be installed. Look at the parking situation for another fiasco, the Maritime museum. The handicap parking is 1/2 block away and most of the available parking is across the field at the boat launch parking lot. Another good point is the Badger smoke stack emissions especially when they drift across the park and playground. Smelly business when the wind blows in that direction which is quite often. The City Stupes treat Ludington like a snow globe. They shake it and when the snow settles they, and we, hope these stupid projects have worked out.

I again witness some Indiana people pushing for this scheme, with an architect from GR, all big city people and ideas for our Ludington that can't pan out too well. Shinblind asks may good questions too, none of which I doubt will be addressed by the political stupes that will make important decisions on this matter. Harbor View Marina, Ludington Boat Club, Copeyan Park, Rotary Park, Peterson Auditorium, WSCC, and several other sites offer plenty of event areas already now. And they aren't frequently used as it is. More folly and distractions so the other important pending issues of local interest are shoved to the back burner imho. And where is funding coming for this fiasco? If it's public, then public funding? If private, then how much they going to charge for events? I'll just be another grant scheme is in the works.

Anything new on this deal with the Planning Comm. on May 1st? Also, I have to ask: on the Lake Cottages deal last year they said they sold 15 out of 16 of those units, that's about  92%. If so, why didn't they build? They must have gotten some deposits of 10-20% on contract. If the units sold for $250K each, that's $3.75 Mil. and 20% of that is $700K. That is surely enough to break ground and build about 3-4 units.

That LPC meeting, which is usually video recorded has not shown up yet, nor have the minutes been posted, so I can't tell you what happened-- maybe somebody else could clue us in who went there?

It's my recollection that they did not have 15 of 16 units sold, rather they had a few sold and said they only needed one more to commit to finalizing the purchase.  That apparently never came.

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