GT County Updates: Building Projects, Crisis Center, Treasurer’s Office

Grand Traverse County will take significant steps forward on several building projects this week, including breaking ground on Project Alpha on LaFranier Road, ratifying an agreement with Norte for a new bicycle education center at the Civic Center, and hosting community engagement sessions on a planned new jail.

County commissioners Wednesday will also hear updates from the GT Mental Health Crisis and Access Center and from the county treasurer’s office, the latter of which has struggled with timely reconciliation and staffing shortages.

Building Projects
Grand Traverse County is planning to break ground today (Tuesday) on Project Alpha, a nearly $28 million expansion of the LaFranier Road campus (pictured, rendering).

Plans call for constructing a 13,500-square-foot emergency operations and communications center (EOCC) and a 38,000-square-foot central operations building (COB) behind the Health Services building. The COB will provide storage and operational space for multiple county departments, including facilities management and the Commission on Aging’s outdoor services. Solar panels are planned on both buildings, and the county will install an on-site well for irrigation and backup potable water if public water goes down.

Commissioners earlier this spring accepted a guaranteed maximum price of $27.795 million for the project. They also approved a resolution allowing the county to bond up to $30 million, a figure that includes an additional buffer for contingencies and bonding costs. The county has called Project Alpha a “transformative initiative that will strengthen and modernize key county operations.” The COB is expected to be complete next spring, while the EOCC is slated for an early summer 2027 completion.

Moving facilities into the new COB is “paving the way” for repurposing the current facilities building at the Civic Center, according to County Director of Parks and Facilities John Chase. GT County Parks and Recreation has signed a land lease for Norte to renovate and use that building as a new bicycle education center. County commissioners Wednesday will ratify an agreement with Norte for that building along with a pump track and bicycle safety garden planned to be installed at the north end of the Civic Center.

Norte is responsible for all costs associated with renovating the building and for its ongoing use, with the county maintaining building ownership and responsibility for its envelope and mechanical/electrical/plumbing systems as the landlord. Grand Traverse County awarded $50,000 in funding to Norte through its marijuana grant program in December for the building project, with the organization continuing to “conduct private fundraising for the building renovation and bicycle safety garden portions of the project,” according to Chase. Pump track construction is slated to start in July.

Also related to building projects: The county will host two informational sessions this week on a new jail and justice complex. The first is today (Tuesday) from 5:30pm to 7:30pm at Paradise Township Hall on M-113 in Kingsley. The second is Thursday from 5:30pm to 7:30pm at Garfield Township Hall on Veterans Drive in Traverse City. An online survey is also available for those who can’t attend and will remain live through May 29.

Deteriorating conditions at the Grand Traverse County Jail prompted an engineer to tell commissioners this spring that they should be “seriously considering” moving to a few facility in the next three to five years. Commissioners had already unanimously approved a resolution of support last April to pursue the construction of a new jail. That’s now envisioned to be part of a larger justice facility that could also include the courts, the prosecutor’s office, the Grand Traverse Sheriff’s Office, the Traverse City Police Department, and the Michigan State Police.

The project is now in the planning phase, with community input expected to help identify concerns and priorities for a new facility. The county noted that key project details including “location, design, programming, and funding approach have not yet been decided.”

Crisis Center Update
Commissioners will hear an update Wednesday on the Grand Traverse Mental Health and Crisis and Access Center, a partnership between Munson Healthcare and Northern Lakes Community Mental Health Authority that opened last year thanks to significant funding support from the county.

According to presentation materials, the 24/7 crisis center – which expanded last summer to include a psychiatric urgent care – has provided over 1,700 services to over 1,000 individuals to date. That includes 755 crisis service recipients – 648 adults and 107 children – representing 28 counties, though Grand Traverse County accounted for the largest segment at 555 recipients. The overall total also includes 265 psychiatric urgent care recipients, including 228 adults and 37 children. One hundred and seventy-two of those recipients were from Grand Traverse County.

Next steps for the facility include opening nine adult crisis residential units, with the presentation stating that Munson is going through licensing for that now and seeking additional operational funding, including $3 million proposed in the state budget. That will be followed by six pediatric crisis residential beds, with lower-level renovation work occurring in preparation for that expansion.

Treasurer Update
Finally, commissioners will hear an update Wednesday from County Treasurer Jamie Callahan. Commissioners have grilled Callahan in recent months about delayed reconciliations for county financial records and late audit filings with the state. In a written report, Callahan said the department is “making progress on reconciliations” by focusing on staying current on daily payments, with the goal of focusing on bank statement reconciliations next. The department is caught up and staying current with electronic grant payments from the state and has also completed all entries needed to close the books for 2025, he wrote.

Callahan also flagged staffing challenges in his report. The department is down one full-time employee and was notified another employee may be resigning soon for health reasons. The department has hired an on-call, part-time employee with extensive treasury experience to help out and has made a job offer to another potential employee. However, Callahan said the department needs a staff member “whose primary focus is account reconciliations” and proposed expanding the staffing plan from 4.7 FTEs to 6 FTEs. Commissioners could vote today on approving that move, which Callahan said would “give the department the support needed to properly function and increase available staff who can also serve our customers.”