Library Plans To Buy Northport Pub & Grille Building

Leelanau Township Library has a purchase option for one of the most prominent buildings in Northport.

Library officials plan to buy the Northport Pub & Grille (NPG) building and transform it into a library and community space. Though the deal isn’t done and there is much money left to be raised, there’s considerable anticipation among library leaders.

“It’s incredibly exciting,” library board president Mark Morton tells The Ticker. “It’s exciting for the library, but it’s also exciting for the community.”

The current library (in the same building as the township hall) is undersized and not able to keep up with what has been an increased demand in recent years, Morton says. The new space will allow for more books, programming and other offerings for the commmunity.

“Since we got our own millage and separated from the township in 2022, we've expanded hours and we've seen more people coming in. Circulation has gone up. And so there's a real demand for a larger library,” he says. “The current 2,800 square foot library does not meet the needs of the community.”

The library needs $1.1 million to buy the building, Morton says, with $200,000 already raised. Library leaders will announce a fundraising campaign sometime in the near future. There is no firm timeline for the purchase.

“Northport has always been a very generous community…and we’re very optimistic about being able to raise the money, we just have to talk to the right people,” Morton says. “And then of course we’re also looking and foundations and grants and that sort of thing.”

Building and restaurant owner Michelle Hemeyer, who opened NPG in 2021 (for several years prior the building had housed Tucker’s) says selling to the library was an attractive proposition.

“Quite honestly, it’s the only reason I did it,” she tells The Ticker. “If somebody wanted to keep the restaurant open, great, but we’ve always been really big on giving back to the community that we’re in. So (selling to the library) was a huge piece of it. It made it more personal, and I love what they’re going to be using it for.”

That said, Hemeyer acknowledged that closing the restaurant was not an easy choice.

“It was a very heart wrenching decision for me because I love the people I work with. I love our staff,” she says. “My staff wants to stay open through the new year and have that be their last shebang, and I’m not going to deny them that. We’re a family, and I wanted them to be a part of that decision.”

Hemeyer will have good memories of running NPG for more than five years. Though some in the community are excited about it becoming a library, she says, plenty of others will miss the restaurant.

“It’s been amazing,” she says. “I love the people and I love the community. It’s been fun. We built something pretty special.”

Initial talks focused on the library only purchasing part of the building and adding on to it, Morton and Hemeyer say, but later focused on the whole building once Hemeyer decided she wanted to retire and sell the whole thing.

“That solved all those problems because renovating an existing footprint is a lot cheaper than putting an addition on,” Morton says. “So that means we can have plenty of library space, plenty of room for books and study rooms and things like that, but also a good-sized community room.”

The building will require work to transform it from a restaurant and bowling alley into a library, but Morton says that’s not the focus right now.

“We've got to get the building purchased and then we can start looking at (remodeling),” Morton says. “We've got some rough estimates on what it would cost to renovate it, but we are not going to start paying designers anything until we have the building.”