MONTAGUE — The Montague City Council approved a city purchase of two currently vacant lots on Water Street for $29,000 from Barrett Holdings LLC at Monday's regular meeting.
The vote was 5-1, with Paul Schultz dissenting. Bob Hires was granted an excused absence.
City Manager Jeff Auch says the city intends to redevelop and resell the lots that can be redeveloped, though Schultz noted that one of the lots cannot be redeveloped due to a high groundwater table that precludes building on it. The money for the sale will come out of the city's general fund, and the proceeds from reselling any of the lots will return to that fund.
The purchased lots are just down the street from WinBerg Construction, a dirt road separating them from WinBerg. The purchase is related to the planned 2027 road work that the state Department of Transportation will be doing on Water Street. Auch said MDOT is considering a new back street that could serve buildings that would be placed on the lots, with new entrances and exits to and from Water.
While the city is not, Auch said, prohibited from profiting off the resale of those lots once that occurs, the likely outcome would be the city seeking only to make enough money to cover the interest it could have made had it invested the money used to purchase the lots.
The council also approved the renaming of the currently unoccupied road at the Montague Industrial Park as Gillan Street, in honor of the Gillan family, particularly former Montague mayor Dr. B. Wayne Gillan and H. William Gillan, a longtime firefighter who began the White Lake Area Sportfishing Association's annual fish boil. The street will soon be in use by industrial park businesses. The council approved this by a 5-1 vote, with Lisa Kiel dissenting; Kiel had previously indicated a desire to not name the street after a person.
During the city manager's report, Auch wryly shared a new update on the "dreaded Maple Grove beach project." The project received two different permit approvals from the state Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) and from the Army Corps of Engineers. EGLE has agreed to tweak their approval to match the Army Corps', but doing so will lead to another delay in the project. Once hoped to be complete this summer, it's likely that due to having to go through the bidding process and other relevant steps, work will not begin until next summer.
"We're still plugging away at it," Auch said.
During the work session that followed the council meeting, the council discussed an environmental analysis for the currently vacant property on Dowling Street that is between the former Rant Insurance Group and the barber shop. Auch said the city had looked at potentially buying the property last year for redevelopment when it was listed for sale. However, there are concerns regarding work that may be necessary to remove fuel storage tanks that may be underground (the property once contained a gas station).
Auch said Westshore Engineering couldn't confirm whether fuel tanks are under the ground, but if they are, it would cost between $30,000-$40,000 per tank to remove them, in addition to other work that, for liability reasons, would be necessary to clean up the property regardless of whether there are tanks present.
The council questioned Auch on what the advantage would be to the city to own the property given the amount of work necessary, and Schultz was skeptical the city should "take on the responsibility" of cleaning up the property when that should fall on the current owner. He also asked if there is grant funding from the state available to help with the cleanup; Auch replied there is, if tanks are there and they are found to be leaking. Council member Ken Mahoney expressed concerns about soil contamination on the site.
Auch noted that there's a chance, if the property changes hands, that the city campground entrance could move to that property, and also referred to the as-yet-unscheduled bridge work that MDOT will have to do to the causeway bridge over the next several years. The work, he said, could result in elevation changes that would change the makeup of that corridor.
