Midtown neighborhood residents Ed and Ann Kalat used to love hearing the grand chimes of the bell in the nearby Grand Traverse County Courthouse tower ringing on the hour.

But over the last few years they’ve been missing it and realize others have too. Now he’s concerned the clock – silent since 2008 – will be completely forgotten and Traverse City will lose a quaint part of its history.

“I found the ringing rather peaceful and reassuring, like ‘It's nine o'clock and all's well’,” Kalat recalls.

He has contacted County Administrator Dave Benda in the hopes county officials will restore the ringing, but he’s also aware that it’s likely a low priority on a significantly stressed budget.

A little backstory: Back in 2004, a malfunction in the very same clock tower atop the Antrim County Courthouse caused a 600-pound set of weights to crash through the ceiling outside the doorway. No one was injured, but concern spread quickly.

Danny Brown, Grand Traverse County facilities director, immediately sent a crew to inspect the hometown courthouse bell tower. Some preventative maintenance was done, but the chiming continued on.

But that tower with its 1899 historic bell was always in the back of Brown’s mind. In 2008 he had a representative from Verdin Bells & Clocks, a pioneer in the clock and bell industry, inspect its workings – weights and cables similar to a grandfather clock. The recommendation? Replace the two, 1,000-lb. counterweights with an “arm” that hits the bell. Cost? $12,000.

Brown put the project in his budget, but county commissioners axed it. Instead, the counterweights were disconnected and still sit on the floor of the tower today, he says. The clock itself, which is manually rewound once a week, functions fine.

Brown recently learned that Verdin now has a new device available for $4,000 less, which he recently ran by county administration. No word yet on what action might come of it.

The Clock You Could See From West Bay

Meanwhile, the digital clock and thermostat atop the multi-story, 1970s era office building at the corner of Front and Park streets will likely never tell time again.

When it stopped working a few years ago, an investigation revealed a costly repair, according to Rick Brandstatter, director of real estate for EFN Traverse City Property LLC, the building’s management company.

The choice: replace all its “innards” or disconnect it. “It was a significant dollar amount so we had it professionally disconnected so it wouldn’t short out or be a fire hazard,” says Brandstatter, adding that fixing it is not high on the building management’s list of priorities.

While many locals got used to checking the time while on West Bay or from the sidewalk below, Brandstatter says it didn’t occur to them that people would actually miss it.

Even though Chase Bank is the building’s main tenant and people often refer to the building as the “Chase building,” the bank has no responsibility whatsoever for the clock, Brandstatter emphasizes.