Grand Marais visioning team proposes design guidelines

Special report by Nancye Belding, True North correspondent

This evening the visioning consultants from Community Growth Institute presented 21 citizens with draft design guidelines for four "concept areas" within the C-1 downtown commercial district. They have done their homework since the last workshop in July, and pieced together a marvelous document that summarizes all the input received from the workshops and a survey of residents.
Rudy Schoolderman said that the concepts were done without looking over the Grand Marais Comprehensive Plan their work is intended to replace; however, many of the conclusions reached by CGI are virtually the same as the earlier vision.
Each of the "concept areas": Core downtown waterfront district, Highway 61 corridor, Residential mixed use area, and Proposed design overlay district for the few blocks along Wisconsin Street and Broadway nearest the lake, comes with a set of proposed standards, uses and strategies aimed at meeting citizens' objectives.
In workshops tomorrow, from 8:30 to 10:00 a.m, 11:30 to 1:00 p.m., and 3:30 to 5:00 p.m., all are invited to review and refine these proposals. The sessions will be held at Grand Marais City Hall. On Saturday, from 9 to 11 a.m., the wrap-up session at Arrowhead Center for the Arts will report on the "vision goals, concepts and strategies that appear to have the most community support."
Please, friends of Grand Marais, come to one or more of these last sessions.
Check back here for continuing information over the next two days.