$4 Million Still Needed to Secure the Elberta Waterfront Community Conservation Project

GTRLC talks fundraising, site plans, and preservation

By Victor Skinner | Sept. 21, 2024

When widespread opposition from residents in Elberta effectively shelved plans for a waterfront development along Lake Michigan in 2022, the Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy (GTRLC) was ready and waiting.

“Any land protection project is often the result of years of work behind the scenes in order to be ready when a deal can be made,” says Erin Whiting, GTRLC’s senior charitable giving specialist. “Because development pressures continue to increase, we have to be very proactive and data driven in our decisions.”

The approach focuses on preserving the “best of the best” by vetting potential land acquisitions through a series of criteria to determine “where a particular project falls on a priority list for us,” Whiting says, and the long dormant 35-acre former industrial site sandwiched between Betsie Bay and Lake Michigan was a no-brainer.

An Extraordinary Benefit to Public Recreation

Water quality issues, wildlife habitat, continuity to other protected land, and the potential to create outdoor recreational opportunities for local residents are all critical considerations, and all weighed heavily on the conservancy’s focus on Elberta.

Owned by Elberta Land Holding Company, the site extends from Elberta Beach to the Historic Waterfront Park, and from the park to the village’s northern edge, covering 578 feet of Lake Michigan frontage, 3,120 feet along Betsie Bay, and 10 acres of steep, forested dunes.

A little over two years ago, plans from developer Richard Knorr International to construct a mixed-use, seven-story building with luxury condos, hotels, restaurants, and a marina fell apart amid heated public pushback, an effort that followed a similar proposal in the mid-2000s.

“We followed that with great interest,” Whiting says. “This project was on our radar for a long time because of the extraordinary benefit to public recreation.”

When the Knorr development proposal fell through in 2022, GTRLC lined up potential donors to put in a bid to purchase the property, one of several the conservancy is working this year to preserve.

“The Elberta project is one of 15 projects in our [five county] service area we’re actively fundraising for right now,” Whiting says.

On June 28, the GTRLC inked a purchase agreement with the Elberta Land Holding Company for $19.5 million based in part on significant leadership commitments from several major donors.

An Unusual (and Short) Timeline

But there was a catch: unlike most acquisitions, the agreement requires the conservancy to close the deal by Dec. 15, a far shorter window than most projects.

“The timeline is extremely unusual,” Whiting says. “Often we will have years to come up with this kind of money. The unique challenge is having to come up with the entire purchase price by Dec. 15.”

Whiting says GTRLC doesn’t “have money sitting around” for purchases of that size, and that the majority of the funding will likely come from private, philanthropic donations. Through the years, the GTRLC has developed “wonderful relationships with very generous people,” Whiting says, and “those are the people we go to and ask to be generous.”

As of print time, the conservancy has raised $15.5 million toward the purchase price, though the GTRLC’s Elberta Waterfront Community Conservation Project aims for a total of $27.5 million to execute its long-term plans for the property.

Something the Village Needs

While the conservancy expects some grant funding from the state once the purchase is complete, the vast majority will come directly from donors who want to preserve access to the Elberta lakeshore, Whiting says.

“The village has always … expected something to be down there, but they’ve never had an idea of what,” says Jennifer Wilkins, Elberta village president. “When this came about with [the GTRLC project], I have not heard one negative thing from anybody.”

The conservancy “is really doing their homework, and it’s amazing everything I hear they’ve thought of,” she adds. “They’re putting the village first in this. I get the chills talking about it because it’s something this village has needed for so long.”

Once supported by railroads and car ferries, Elberta was forced to reinvent itself as a tourist town, but the lakeshore property has long stood in the way, Wilkins says.

GTRLC’s plans would allow the village to extend its Betsie Valley Trail through the property to Lake Michigan, linking Frankfort and Elberta’s municipal beaches to another 22 miles of scenic trails in Benzie County, a longtime priority for the village.

Nine acres east of the village’s Waterfront Park would be set aside for community-aligned redevelopment, and another 16 acres to the west would merge into the park, opening up 578 feet of Lake Michigan shoreline.

“Just the fact we’re able to develop the section east of the park, it’s like a win-win” for Elberta’s efforts to boost its tax base and expand workforce housing, Wilkins says. “We would be working with the state land bank for the part that would be developed.”

The State Land Bank Authority works with municipalities to help develop former industrial lands for economic development, and would help Elberta “think through what that will look like financially,” Whiting says.

Retail, businesses, housing, “all those things are options, but it’s really for the village to say what they want in their community,” Whiting explains.

Preserving the Ecosystem

The remaining 10 acres, located between Waterfront Park and Elberta Beach, would be preserved by the conservancy in perpetuity as a nature sanctuary “because it’s pretty decent forested dune habitat,” says Chris Garrock, GTRLC’s director of stewardship.

“It’s a really nice example of a forested dune ecosystem, part of the freshwater dune system we have here,” Garrock says, adding there’s also a couple of small pockets of boreal forest with more coniferous tree species.

With pockets of low-lying interdunal wetlands, the area is home to several threatened plant species including state threatened Pitcher’s thistle, marram grass, sand dune willow, foam flower, Gillman’s goldenrod, and others.

In total, initial flora inventory work identified 18 important plant species to preserve on the 10 acres, as well as bald eagles and numerous shore birds using the property, from spotted sandpipers to Killdeer to semipalmated plover.

In addition to preserving the critical dune habitat, the project would also open up new areas to remove invasive baby’s breath the conservancy has worked to eradicate from Elberta beach for well over a decade, Garrock says.

“It will allow us to expand and get in an area we weren’t able to treat before,” he says.

Tremendous Energy

With just under three months to go before the Dec. 15 deadline, Whiting says she’s “feeling very optimistic” the sale will go through. If it doesn’t, the property would remain with its current owners, as an extension on the closing deadline seems unlikely, Whiting says. The conservancy would contact folks who donated to either return their funds or divert them to another project, though that’s never happened since the conservancy launched three decades ago, she says.

“There’s tremendous energy behind this project, so much enthusiasm in the community,” Whiting says. “We have had people reach out to us we don’t even know, who have not been conservancy supporters before.”

That’s likely to continue with plans for a Sept. 21 fundraiser hosted by St. Ambrose Cellars, a Beulah based brewer that specializes in meads, hand-crafted beer, and wine.

Cory Woessner, St. Ambrose’s director of marketing, says the company named the Elberta Waterfront Community Conservation Project the recipient of its annual barn dance fundraiser this year because it’s “what everyone wants” for the region.

“To have that access [to the beach and water], I know that will mean so much to the people in Elberta and residents of Benzie County,” Woessner says.

The event, which Woessner describes as “a party for the community,” may only raise a few thousand dollars, he says, but could help connect new people to the project.

“Besides money, it’s kind of an awareness thing, … we’re just trying to get the word out,” Woessner says. “You never know who’s going to be in the crowd.”

Learn more about the GTRLC project at gtrlc.org/activeprojects/elberta-waterfront-community-conservation-project and St. Ambrose’s Barn Dance at stambrose-mead-wine.com/events/barn-dance-2024.

Photo by Aaron Dennis