Two aging retail centers in Traverse City – Logan’s Landing on South Airport Road and The Arcade on Front Street – could see new life under owners eager to revitalize the sites to attract a new generation of customers. The Ticker has an inside look at the latest plans for both properties.

Logan’s Landing
New Logan’s Landing Property Manager Darraugh Opelski is aware of the perceptions many in the community have of the rundown property. Once a booming retail and restaurant hub, the site has declined in recent years due to competition from other shopping centers and downtown, a revolving door of tenants, and a lack of upkeep.

“A lot of people have kept their distance,” Opelski says. “It’s been neglected for the last decade. It’s an eyesore, honestly.”

But Opelski sees “unlimited potential” in the riverfront property, situated on one of the city’s busiest corridors. After General Managing Partner Marvin Hasso – the father of Opelski’s fiancé – bought a majority stake in Logan’s Landing last year, he offered the Bay City couple a stake in the property in exchange for “sprucing the space up, filling it (with tenants), and ultimately hopefully changing the community’s perception of it.”

That's no small task, Opelski acknowledges – but one she says her team is up for. The first step in their plan is upgrading the property itself. The group faces at least one major challenge: Due to its proximity to the Boardman River, Logan's Landing is considered a non-conforming property in Garfield Township under today's zoning regulations. Therefore, management is prohibited from making any major structural changes to the site. But owners can maintain and repair the existing facilities, as well as make aesthetic improvements.

Within those parameters, “we have essentially three phases of renovation (planned),” Opelski says. “Phase one we’re going through now, and that’s cosmetic. It’s upgrading the exterior and simultaneously working on the interior.”

Opelski has 33,000 square feet to work with on the west side of the Boardman River. (Across the bridge, Vince Amroian owns the former Auntie Pasta’s building and has made his own improvements to Logan’s Landing's east side). Ten tenants currently lease space from Opelski; over the next year, she hopes to attract another five to eight. Logan’s Landing will host an open house from 11am to 1pm today (Saturday) to display a recently renovated space available for lease, the first in a series of shop and studio spaces Opelski hopes to modernize and put on the market.

“Then, phase two will be the bridge and landscaping,” she says. “That’s a major project we’ll be working on all next summer.” Opelski hopes to repaint the covered bridge connecting the east and west side of Logan’s Landing, replace its Plexiglass cut-outs with windows, and eventually redo the awning. She also hopes to illuminate the bridge with twinkling lights in a similar project to the Third Street Star Bridge in her native Bay City.

Existing broken concrete and faded deck paint along the riverfront outdoor walkways will be upgraded to “a nice raised deck area and beautiful flower beds with some benches and cute tables,” Opelski says. The third phase of renovations will involve replacing the roof on the north building of Logan’s Landing and resurfacing the parking lot.

With many smaller start-ups and retail shops in the center, Opelski has committed to still keeping rates affordable: Rent averages $7 per square foot, compared to $18-$22 per square foot downtown. Opelski notes those prices could rise as improvements are made and demand increases, but she hopes to stay in a range that attracts artists and retailers. In addition to potentially converting the 3,400 square-foot upper cathedral of the north building into a new event/banquet center, she also hopes to attract a café or brewery to Logan's Landing. The organizer of Bay City’s popular outdoor East Bank Market, Opelski says she’d also like to eventually host community events, festivals and markets at the property.

“With that, more retail spaces and the TART Trail (proposed to be completed around Boardman Lake) coming through right next to us, that could drive a lot more traffic here,” she says, adding Logan’s Landing could offer public restrooms and vending machines for trail users. “It’s a huge opportunity for us to take a place people have thought negatively of, and make this a destination point again.”

The Arcade
Downtown’s The Arcade is back at 140 East Front Street – though as building owner Terry Beia wryly points out, “I’m not sure it was ever really gone.”

The name of downtown’s “one and only mini-mall,” first opened in 1972, was changed from The Arcade to Front Street Commons nearly two decades ago in an attempt to upgrade its image. But “it really didn’t work and the name never stuck,” says Beia. “If you’ve lived in Traverse City for more than two decades, the building…will always be The Arcade.”

The Arcade moniker is now proudly again displayed on the renovated exterior of the building – one of several new improvements made to the shopping center. New hardwood floors and lighting “make the space more inviting for shoppers,” Beia says, and a roster of “younger, more progressive tenant start-ups” have filled the vacancies created when Hocus Pocus and Good News Music departed in 2012. Vintage toys, artwork, skateboarding equipment, local apparel, comedy and music shows, scooter rentals and haircuts are just a few of the products and services customers can now sample in The Arcade.

Beia says the changes - both in the building and its tenants - have made the retail center "a hipper place today than it has ever been."

"Our overall goal for the property hasn't changed," he says. "We want to keep the rent affordable. The spaces are cheap. It's a great place to test market your goods and services."