New Details Emerge on Proposed Private Marina in Elmwood Township

More details are emerging about a new marina planned for West Grand Traverse Bay in Elmwood Township.

As The Ticker  first reported last year, Harbor Springs-based Walstrom Marine acquired the former Viridian building along West Bay Shore Drive with plans for a marina, something that could address the extremely pent-up demand for boat slips on the bay. Many marinas have wait lists in the 5-10 year range.

Walstrom, a boat dealership and marine services group that already operates a handful of private marinas, now says they hope to have a new marina on the site operational as soon as 2028. Though plans are still being hammered out, the goal is 100 slips in the 40-60 foot range.

“Traverse City is such a growing, young professional market, and these people who would love to have access to water just don’t have any, because there’s nowhere to put a boat,” Walstrom President Jeremy Anderson tells The Ticker.

The problem is so significant that it’s impacted Walstrom’s sales in the region. Many willing customers end up staying away from larger boat purchases because they can’t find a slip, Anderson says.

“We have a lot of people call us and say, I’d love to get a new boat, but you’ve got to help me get a slip, and there just aren’t any,” he says. “It’s a real problem.”

Walstrom customers would get priority at the new marina, Anderson says, and conversations about slips there are already occurring with existing and potential customers.

But the entire project is still in its very early stages, Anderson stresses. Only the large components are pinned down in concept, including the marina and a boat showroom on site. Condos are also a possibility. But the design and finer details have yet to be hammered out.

“We’re not even at the point where we can show it to people yet, because we don’t have it figured out internally,” he says. “And everything has to be approved by multiple different entities and agencies, all the different people that it takes to do the water and land side of it.”

Anderson hopes that the project will clear all hurdles.

“We believe we'll be able to do it because we're bringing a value to everybody at the area, and we're not doing something that's big and crazy,” he says. “Our goal is to have it look like it always belonged there.”

That includes the marina and any land-based buildings, Anderson says. Condos, if included, won’t be numerous.

“We're not building a condo tower, or anything like that. If we did (include them), it would be a handful on site, and…we're conscious of the height level of the building now,” he says. “We’re not looking to go higher; we’re not looking to cut off anyone’s view.”

Walstrom is working with St. Joseph-based Edgewater Resources on the project. Anderson says the group – which designed the new Navy Pier Marina in Chicago and completed various projects at Walstrom’s marinas in Cheboygan and Harbor Springs – is skilled at not only designing marinas, but working within the regulatory framework to get them built.  

“Their pedigree is that they work around the Great Lakes with bigger marinas like this, and we’re very confident with who they are," he says. "There's written rules you have to follow and they know what they are, and they're helping guide us.”

Elmwood Township Supervisor Jeff Shaw tells The Ticker he’d be glad to see something productive happen at the Viridian building site, though he hasn't seen anything concrete.

“They haven’t submitted any applications, and we haven’t seen any plans or anything like that, so we know about as much as everyone else at this point,” Shaw says. “They’ve come in a couple times and asked us some zoning questions, things like that, but we haven’t seen any plans.”

Shaw suspects Walstrom’s 2028 opening date is quite optimistic.

“They’ll have to get permits from us, and (the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy,) the DNR, Army Corps, all that stuff,” he says. “I think their timeline is way more aggressive than it will actually be, but I guess we’ll all wait and see how it all shakes out.”

Anderson clarified that the building might not be done by then, but that’s the working target for the marina.

“The goal is to get people on the water first,” he says. “If the building's not done in time, it doesn't need to be finished to be able to put boats in the water.”