Welcome to mid-winter. Depending on how you look at it, it’s either been a good winter or a bad one. For us here it’s kind of in between. Just enough snow and cold weather to keep us busy, but not enough to overwhelm us. The last time I wrote, I told you about the successes we were having in concluding our negotiations with the Duke/LifePoint project. I’m happy to report that everything is still full speed ahead with ground breaking to occur in May or June this summer.

However, we’ve now turned our attention to the building of the new Public Works Service Center on Wright St. If you recall, we committed to building the new Service Center after displacing the old one and selling that property to DLP. And if you’re wondering at all, this is all good. Marquette will have a new state of the art hospital and a new Service Center to better serve our community.

Continuing on the building theme, I can’t help but be continuously awed by the amount of new constructing that is currently happening or will be happening in Marquette. All starting this spring or summer. In addition to the DLP and Service Center projects, new construction will begin on the refurbishing of the “Old Orphanage” which will be converted to specialized housing and is long overdue. The BLP will begin construction on their new Energy Center that will include the construction of large building that will house three new gas/oil generators at their Wright Street location. The Landing Development people are scheduled to begin construction of another phase of their project with the building of a planned parking ramp topped with apartments and retail space. NMU is expected to begin a construction project of their own with the construction of new residence and dining facilities.

Those are just the biggies. On a smaller scale the City, along with the Lambros and Butler families, will begin construction on the new Clark Park located just south of the Dead River on Lakeshore Blvd. Last, but not least, construction will begin on a refurbishing and upgrade to Father Marquette Park on South Front St.

All in all it great news for the City of Marquette, but I must warn everyone that it could be trying and at times difficult to navigate through the City. I suspect there will be road closures and other delays that could affect vehicle, bicycle and pedestrian traffic throughout the summer and possible future summers, so let’s all be patient and enjoy the success.

Well, it’s been roughly two months since the last issue of Marquette Matters and we’ve all been very busy. If you recall, the last time I wrote I told you a little about myself after having been unexpectedly elevated to the position of City Manager. It was a time of some uncertainty and maybe some confusion, but I’m happy to report that City Staff has not missed a beat and continues to do the good work that we’ve all come to expect.

The emphasis for the last few months (and for several months yet to come) has been putting the pieces of the Duke LifePoint project together. As you are probably aware, this is a complicated process with many moving parts, one of which is the relocation of the Municipal Service Center. This is an educational process for me and I am continuously amazed at the actual number of City departments and staff that are needed to make this all work. Due to the complexity of the project, every City Department, with the exception of one, has had to contribute in one fashion or another. Luckily for me, everyone here is very good at what they do and I can depend more on their expertise instead of sticking my nose in where it doesn’t belong.

Although many staff members have contributed to this project, I couldn’t help but have a special appreciation for City Attorney Ron Keefe and his partner Suzanne Larsen. The amount of legal work that went into this project was staggering and there were at least six attorneys involved from both sides (and we can all imagine the potential there). But I’m happy to report that we all had the same goal, the right people were in the room and reason and common sense won the day. My thanks to Tom Butler and the DLP staff as well. They proved to be good people to work with.

In case you missed it, we were able to complete the land sale (the current Service Center) to DLP through a detailed Post Closing Development Agreement, approve a lease agreement with DLP to enable us to continue to (temporarily) utilize part of our old Service Center after they purchased it and during our transition to our new Service Center, approve the purchase of about 3.5 acres of land from Argonics on Wright Street for the development of the new Service Center and move forward in solidifying some of the funding for the project through the Brownfield Redevelopment process.

Of course there is still plenty left to be done, but if anyone has any doubt that the hospital project will happen I, for one, am not seeing anything to indicate otherwise.