Seven tables, 70 attendees, countless ideas.
Thursday evening's Brainstorming the Barns meeting at Traverse City West Junior High School drew in the interested and the creative, the curious and the committed to begin a public process of determining what to do with the 54-acre property. Owned jointly by the City of Traverse City and Garfield Township, following a successful millage in 2004, the property is rich with potential for public use.
Soliciting public input is key to the city and the township Recreational Authority in determining the future of this portion of the former Traverse City State Hospital grounds.
"This is a project that has been a long time coming,” said Mac McClelland, an outside facilitator with Otwell Mawby, who are leading the independent input process. "This is the next step to determining the use of the barns.”
"We're committed to an open process where everyone's voice is heard — there are no preconceived notions, it's a blank slate,” he added.
At the meeting the ideas flew fast and furious, including creating a performing arts center, a conservatory, softball fields or a landscaping school. Others suggested using the cathedral barn for classrooms, making community gardens, using the property as a dog park, opening a community market, taking advantage of the buildings for a natural amphitheater, creating a Greenfield Village-like historical farm, continuing an urban art studio and so on.
The major themes teased out were to have the acreage embody sound environmental and green-friendly principles or to be a hub of culture and learning — or both.
"People were excited to have an opportunity to give some input,” said Mike Groleau, the secretary of the Recreational Authority board and leader of the steering committee addressing the barns property.
"We had a lot of really good input, a broad range of ideas,” he continued. "A lot of them we'd heard over time and some of them were new but that's part of the brainstorming process.”
McClelland led off with an introduction to the history of the property, an overview of the project and a list of the bottom line givens. These items include that the barns and property must remain in public use, any plan must follow existing plans or acts, although those may be amended, and that the use must eventually enable the barns and property to be economically self sufficient. Other assumptions included that water, sewer and electric service would be available on the property as well as public access via an extension to Franke Road.
Facilitators led small group, round table discussions about uses for the acreage, three barns and seven outbuildings. After writing down the ideas from each table, the meeting paused while facilitators compiled all ideas into one master list. This list will be the starting point for the second meeting of the multi-part series, which is scheduled for Thursday, February 15.
More ideas are welcome at that meeting, whose focus will be to discuss alternative scenarios as well as the themes suggested during the initial brainstorming session. A third meeting is planned for mid March to winnow ideas down into a preferred scenario, with the caveat that the Recreational Authority has the final say over the resulting use of the barns and property. If necessary, a fourth and final meeting will be held in mid April to clarify the preferred scenario.
"It was great, we were really pleased with the turnout,” said Groleau of the first meeting. "Folks seemed really enthused about the project.”
The second Brainstorming the Barns meeting will be held at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, February 15, at the West Junior High School cafeteria, 3950 Silver Lake Road. For more information about the meetings and the brainstorming project, see the Web site www.brainstormingthebarns.org or call 922-4526.