A popular and well-used dock that provided access to the Carp/Leland River and Lake Leelanau will return via a public-private partnership.

The Leland Yacht Club Foundation announced this week that it will partner with Leland Township to raise $200,000 for construction of a new dock to replace the one removed last year by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

The dock sat between Bluebird and the Riverside Inn for many years, and its removal (necessitated by poor condition, the DNR said at the time) was a considerably sore subject in town. Though a small pier remains for launching purposes, removing a long stretch of dock along the shore took away a critical access point for boaters who traveled to the village from across the lake and tied up for short periods.

“It was something that the community had valued and used for multiple generations,” LYCF board member Joe Voss tells The Ticker. “It upset a lot of people.”

The DNR didn’t plan to replace the dock, but was open to working with the township on plans to replace it. In April, the township board entered into a long-term lease with the DNR and secured approval to re-install a permanent dock at the site for both daytime transient docking and boat launching.

The township board in July hired Lakeshore Marine to design the dock and work with Michigan's Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) department for permitting. The township is now working with the DNR to determine the length of the dock, ADA access points and launch platforms, among other details.

“Now what we're working on with the DNR is what they'll approve. We've put a couple of plans in front of them and they’ve given comments,” Supervisor Clint Mitchell tells The Ticker. “I think we're pretty close, because it's getting down to the point of details like what they’re looking for in terms of widths and heights of things.”

The township wants the dock to be bigger than the previous iteration to allow for more transient docking, Mitchell says. Such docking was a popular (but informal) use of the old dock.

“What was there in the past was a little over 100 feet, and we're trying to lengthen that,” he says. “What (we) last provided was something that was closer to 250 feet. The width of the property is 300 feet.”

Mitchell says the township hopes to have an agreement with the DNR in the coming weeks, and a permit by the end of the year, allowing for construction in the spring of 2026, if not sooner. This relatively quick timeline is a direct result of the partnership with the yacht club foundation, which can get the money in hand more quickly. 

"The township doesn't have the money to build a dock like that. If we went to a millage, it would be really difficult because the majority of people don’t own boats. And even if we did pass a millage, funding wouldn’t be available until next year,” he says. “We knew it was going to have to be a public-private partnership, and the yacht club foundation…was a great fit.”

Mitchell says it’s possible the township could have found ways to collect money directly. Still, both he and Voss feel that potential donors will be much more comfortable giving to the foundation rather than the government.

“While there's a lot of people with interest that would like to contribute, they didn't have a good place to send the money,” Voss says. “I think people will be a lot more willing to put some donations out there when they know that the contributions are going to the replacement of the dock.”’

More information about the foundation can be found here.