This month Bay-Journal will be marking its second anniversary having gone online April 24, 2000.

A year ago in the April 2003 edition of this monthly magazine, I reported that Bay-Journal had grown from 40 pages to 282 during it's first year with over 53,000 visits to the website. As we near the end of our second year the figures stand at over 700 webpages and the number of visits is about 150,000. During the past twelve months over 400 new pages have been added and about 100,000 visits were made to the website.

We also added the "Writings" and "Kidz-Only" sections and spent a considerable amount of time reworking some of the old ones.

The Writings section contains old documents as they were written. The largest number comes from old newspaper articles. The idea for this came from Alan Flood whose contributions to its growth have been exceptional.

The Kidz Only section was added to encourage youngsters to become familiar with their community's history. It contains a variety of fun things to do with "Bubbles," our kids tour guide. And, of course -- it includes a simplified version of local history with plenty of pictures.

The Maps Library received a fair number of new maps including old plats documents additions to Banks, Essex, West Bay City, Salzburg, etc. Each includes the names of owners, clerks, surveyors and others. We hope to add more cemetery maps this summer.

Besides Alan's important contributions, many others have also shared history content for Bay-Journal and their help is greatly appreciated. However, one family in particular deserves special attention for their generosity. My initial contact with them came through Kathy Czuba who suggested that I contact her parents, Gladys and Clarence Stroemmer who have a large collection of memorabilia on local history. I did, and I wasn't disappointed. Gladys and Clarence had boxes full of scrap-books which contained a treasure of history from the early 1900s in photos and old newspaper clippings. For over six months I have been digitizing much of this material which has yet to be put online, but will be in the near future.

Thank you Kathy, Gladys, Clarence, Alan and all who have contributed to putting our history online.

While progress during the past two year has exceeded my expectations, there is much more that needs to be accomplished. I spent a great deal of time in seeding various sections of the website with a few articles in each to create a structure for viewers in finding information, and for contributors to help in growing their content. I've purchased a new digital camera to replace the old one which yielded some pretty bad images and I need to take new pictures to replace those I posted to the website. I would like to spend a considerable amount of time this summer visiting the townships and capturing pictures of historical sites to add to their individual pages in the Community section. Ideally, it would be great if someone from each of the townships were able to contribute these instead. My wish list is long and typically, I do things as opportunities arise. This practice while inconsistent with the idea of planning, has none the less contributed to the volume of content that has gone online.

Some time ago I adopted the slogan, "Help Us If You Can!" for the website -- I encourage you to participate in putting your community's history online. I have found it be one of the most interesting and enjoyable projects I have ever undertaken. Together, it can be our way of saying, "thanks" to the generations went before us while making it easier for others to learn about it.

Three old bridges traversing the Kawkawlin river may soon be replaced. Their replacemend funding is being made possible by the combined resources of local, state and federal government. The local government portion is a small fraction of the overall funding. The bridges in the proposal are the chip Road Bridge in Williams Township, Old Beaver Road Bridge between Monitor and Kawkawlin townships, and Flajole Raod Bridge in Garfield township.

News reported in two front page articles of today's Bay City Times is disburbing!

A 1.4 million grant to clean up the former Industrial Brownhoist property will be lost on April 23rd because the city has not yet picked a developer for the Uptown At River's Edge (UARE) project. Not to worry -- because Robert Belleman says the city will reapply for the grant once it has a developer sign up, but he has no guess as to when that will be? I for one would like to know why the city couldn't have worked with the granting agency, Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) to clean up the property before selecting a developer? After all, its obvious that work needs to be done and doing it now would speed up process by getting this out of the way regardless of who the developer is. Some form of progress has to physically take place on the UARE project quickly -- it was even a recommended by the Wiesman Group hired by the city to study what UARE should be. Another concern I have is will the funds be available from the MDEQ when the city reapplies for another grant? The economic situation of the state isn't getting any better and there is no guarantee a grant will exist even be possible then.

The other article speaks to the "Cool Cities" project began by Governor Granholm started in which 30 city majors have joined in an advisory panel to promote the cool cities project aimed at improving the image of Michigan's cities. Former Major Newsham is a member and attended the last September. Although a local advisory committee has been formed, there has yet to be a first meeting! Inaction of this group apparently got caught up in the majoral change and lack of someone to take leadership. Governor Granholm annouced this past Thursday that the state will be giving 12 grants of $100,000 each to cities that subject a bid for one. Pressured by the announcement, the city is now scurring to educate itself on how to make a bid. The city has until May 7th to submit their application!

On another note, I sent away for a copy of the "Michigan Travel Ideas 2004" magazine and there were three great articles about Bay City attractions in it. This magazine is produced by the state and distributed worldwide as a way of promoting Michigan. In browsing through the many other articles in the magzine, I couldn't help but notice the many full page ads of cities promoting themselves to the viewership of this magazine. Guess who wasn't doing so? Three featured articles about Bay City, but no full ad page about Bay City. Nor was Bay City listed under the "free travel information" section. I wonder how we blew this opportunity? For those of you that would like to know what Michigan has done already to promote our community, you can order a "free" copy of the magazine - use the following link to their website:

Zielinski Hardware, Made-Rite Pototo Chips, and Lewis Manufacturing each were featured in the news this past for week for different story lines, but all because of their history in the Bay City community.

Made-Rite:
Better Made Snack Foods which bought out Made Rite a decade ago has put the building up for sale. They are looking for another building in the Tri-City area which will improved their storage distribution operation in this area. Potato chip manufacturing was transferred to their Detroit plant shortly after they took ownership. Since then, they've fill the Made-Rite labeled bags with their own product (I thought they tasted different!), and will at this time be oboleting the the Made-Rite label from their product line.

Made-Rite came into being during the 1940s as a local chip manufacturer. I can remember as a youngster know a friend who had a family member working there, and we were allow to go there a few times with him. As a kid, it was quite amazing to see a river of boiling oil with potatoe slices being cooked as they made their way down the production line, for salting, drying, then, bagging. They tasted pretty darn good too!

Lewis Manufacturing:
Tim Younkeman, who writes featured articles for the Times, many of which give us a glance back at local history, made Lewis Manufacturing the topic of his last article. Lewis was located on Lafayette Avenue where the neighborhood mall is now. They had a steady employment of around 125-150 workers manufacturing all sorts of window sashes and panes.

Zielinski Hardware:
In 1908, when Martin Zielinski started himself a hardware business on the north western corner of Cass and Michigan. It closed down in 1955 by his son, but he didn't sell off the goods inside -- so, 49 years later on April 14th they'll be auctioned off. Whether you're an antique collector or just want to by a bit of history, this is the place to go on April 14th.

New sewer lines are expected to be completed in late 2005. The lines will run along M-13 in Fraser and Kawkawlin townships, and are expected to spur new growth to the affected areas. Some presents businesses are expecting to expand their operations as a result of the increased sewer capacity, and new businesses may be attracted to these areas which would not have been possible before due to limited sewer capacity.

This evening the Weitzman consultant group presented their plan for "Up Town At River's Edge to city officials and a public audience at the City Hall which was broadcast live over Channel 3 television. As the presentation was being laid out, I was shocked and surprised to learn that the giant industrial buildings of the former Industrial Brownhoist are to play an important role in developing this 48 acres along the river's edge. I had prepared myself for the worse - that none of these buildings would make it through the market justification of a seasoned professional group. I was wrong, and I couldn't be more excited that these historical structures will play a role in the future of Bay City.

The Plan

I created a graphic on the right that shows the Weitzman plan in comparison with a 1918 image of the area when this area was heavily used for industrial purposes. The circle identifies the foundry building that will become the focus attraction of the new development. Below are figures on land use of the UARE plan.

• 21% residential
• 17% commercial
• 18% reserved for future use
• 13% open space
• 16% streets and parking
• 15% unknown (may be marina areas)

Foundry Market, major attraction.

The Weitzman plan turns the old foundry building into large merchant/activities center that on a smaller scale would be similar in nature to Boston's Quincy Market or San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf. Two new harbors are created off the Saginaw River that border the Foundry market on the north and south. To the east is an open area that includes an oval street scape connecting Water and Saginaw streets. The setting provides a spacious and inviting view of the Foundry complex from all four directions.

Further north of the Foundry Market Place is a triangular shaped park, and to south a condo residential complex (yellow) with 75 units angles around the south harbor. To the east of the new park area is land set aside for future development (purple) aimed at office buildings or an educational campus. The areas (red) surrounding the Foundry's entrance would have a multi-use, but most like a combination of commercial and public activities. Public access to the river's edge is provided by a walkway that extends from the southern edge of the UARE property north to Wenonah Park. A Water street extension to the UARE area is possible from Wenonah Park by opening the underpass that already exists at the Veterans Memorial Bridge, which would run past the east side of Foundry Market and through the residential area to the southern portion of the existing Water Street.

Overall Costs.

The plan as it exists now would cost about $75 million to complete, but it can be built in three or four development phases. The Weitzman group believe the first phase which would include infrastructure and the Foundry Market could begin as earlier as January 2005. The plan is intended to be flexible, but should serve as a long-term concept of what this new area should be to become vital and meet the needs of our community.

I fully endorse this conceptual plan as I agree with the professional judgement and experience of the Weitzman group. They have avoided the attractive pit-fall of creating a modern plan based solely on commercial interests. Instead, their plan embraces the existing character of historical business districts. The result will be a continuity of a historical theme that compliments the success already established by Bay City's business communities. Their approach balances the realty of what has worked well for Bay City and what might be done done to take this success to a higher level.

Baseball Stadium.

Apparently aware of local interests to bring a professional baseball team to Bay City, the Weitzman team made a point in their presentation that they highly recommend using property of the UARE for the purpose of a new stadium. They strongly believe the long-term interests of the community is best served if the overall concept of property remains focused solely on growing a merchant/public base on this property. It has been mention in recent discussions of using the northern portion of UARE property for a stadium if the city is successful in bringing a club here. I agree with Weitzman opinion. I would still like to see professional baseball here if it is financially feasible. I would suggest the Middle Grounds area south of the Lafayette bridge connection would be an ideal location for a ballpark named after local baseball Hall of Famer, John Clarkson. A water front ballpark there would stimulate new development to the south end that would benefit business districts in that area.

Personal Preferences.

I like what the Weitzman group has generated, and I certainly would be proud and pleased to enjoy it as is. But, if I had my rathers, there is some tweaking I would like to see take place.

To begin with, I don't believe the private marina south of the Foundry building needs to be as large as it is or even reserved as private docking belonging to the new condos owners. Many that will desire buy a condo along the river will not be boating enthusiasts and there is plenty of other marinas with winter storage capabilities that those are enthusiastic boats would probably prefer. I would begin by allowing condo owners to purchase a reserve docking space if wanted. The biggest draw for buying a condo in the new is being along the water front close to the Foundry market area.

I would also rearrange the condo layout to put the most expensive condos on the water front, with less expensive one to further form the water. And, I would redirect Water to separate the higher end condos by the water from the smaller less expensive ones on the east side of the road. A small portion of these could be one or two room rental complexes for middle income senior citizens. Each area would have their own private parking, but public walkways traversing the property to allow easy river access for all.

I also favor replacing the oval court east of the Foundry market with a large parking area which is bordered on the north a one way street going south to Water Street and on the south by a one street connection to Saginaw Street. Both of these one streets would also control traffic in and out of the large parking. In future years the parking lot if warranted could be expanded to a parking multi-level ramp building with merchant or business offices on the upper level leaving the park levels open to maintain some level of openness to that area.

The marina north of the Foundry building could be done later on when it's clear the south marina has run out of capacity.

To maintain a free flowing walkway along the river, I would like to see a walk bridge along the river that crosses over the marina's entrance. This would increase the areas of access to the Foundry market as well.

And, somewhere down the line I would like to see the city work with Bay Metro to come up with a trolley bus system devoted to moving people around all the business areas on the east and westside. This to me is better than consuming more land for parking lots. Building parking ramp buildings as the economy warrants and proving the trolley service move them to areas that are to far away to walk to.

The good news is that after a pause we are back on track to physically reshape this asset which will visually demonstrate to all that it's going to happen. The sooner we do so the sooner we'll begin to enjoy the years of hard work got us to this point.