New Ticket Office for the SS Badger

[XLFD]

Days after the 2019 season ended for the SS Badger, the last coal-fired car ferry operating on the Great Lakes, their parent company has made some plans for off-season improvements.  Lake Michigan Carferry has announced via the Associated Press that they will be tearing down the old ticket office and replacing it with a new building with a more modern look and accomodations.

The new facility is projected to be erected for the 2020 'sailing' season at the old site and is expected to include a gift shop and other possible upgrades to the older office that has been around since the era when railroad cars were shipped across the lake on multiple ferries operating in Ludington.  

In spring of this year, Lake Michigan Carferry (LMC) having received $5 million from the federal government, 2.9 million from the State of Wisconsin and about $1.6 million in funds provided by the City of Manitowoc, completed a dock replacement on both sides of the lake for the SS Badger that was said to have cost $9.5 million in total.  The addition of all those government sourced funds fall just under $9.5 million.  

Just last year, LMC's owner sold a parcel adjacent to the docks and had the taxpayers pay for the environmental cleanup of the old railroad yard through a tax increment financing scheme.

Yes, these were the same people crying foul back in 2003-2004 about how unfair it was for the Lake Express enterprise to get loans from the government to start up.  Loans need to be paid back.

LMC has not indicated whether their private business will be paying for their new ticket booth or whether they will be asking the local, state and/or federal taxpayers for the capital.