Economic growth study spurs ideas

by Angie Asam, Staff Writer

Tuesday evening marked the kick off event for the economic growth study being conducted for downtown Rogers City. Sharon Woods, of Land Use USA welcomed the crowd, ?give yourselves a round of applause, this is an excellent turnout,? she said. More than 70 people gathered at the Rogers City Area Senior and Community Center for the meeting.

Those present at the meeting included concerned citizens, lifelong residents, business people, local governmental officials and many more interested in the future of Rogers City and the area. Woods spent the beginning of her career working for Macy?s stores before moving on to be a store locator for the Kmart Corporation. She, like many others, lost her job when Kmart went bankrupt and found herself launching her very own consulting firm in Lansing.

She has been a downtown consultant for 10 years and has worked with many small cities. ?I am a believer in Michigan?s downtowns and the small merchants in them,? said Woods. Woods told the public about the economic growth strategy study she will be conducting emphasizing its focus on jobs and bringing back downtowns. ?If I was just going to go off and do my analysis without talking to you, how would I qualify that? I couldn?t, you are my sounding board,? said Woods to the public.

Following the kickoff meeting, where those gathered were asked to fill out a questionnaire, Woods will do some more discovering before two more public workshop meetings are held. Her goal in the study is to develop site-specific recommendations for the downtown. Woods found 18 vacant buildings on her first visit to Rogers City but found a lot of character and history in the downtown. She will be looking at what the best use would be for some of those properties.

Following her presentation, Woods asked each table of people to spend about 15 minutes answering three basic questions: the top economic challenge, the top economic opportunity and one practical suggestion. Each group spent time working on those questions and found the top challenge to be jobs, the top opportunity to be tourism, location, who and what is already here and the arts. Practical suggestions were harder to come by but included collaboration and more focus on tourism.

Other economic challenges raised were the low population density, poor signage and embracing what we do have instead of complaining about what we don?t have. However, the general consensus was that we need jobs and tourism is a major opportunity. Many people discussed the bi

ggest export of the city being the young people,. Other topics included were collaboration, promotion of the town, year-round tourism, learning about other organizations and what they are doing and the notion to stop being Michigan?s best kept secret.

Of course Wolverine Power came up a few times as many gathered saw it as a huge economic opportunity and felt we should do all we could to make it happen. ?What we?ve got doesn?t make a lot of noise. We have quiet hiking trails, quiet parks that you can sit in at night, and we have a low amount of traffic,? said resident and former businessman Gerald Gray.

Woods thanked the public for attending and being involved in this, the listening and discovery stage. She encouraged the crowd to stay involved as this project moves forward and asked them to bring others on board.