Silver Bay residents may remember a citizen survey that was sent out to the community that asked a series of questions relating to their visions for the city’s future. The survey was in-depth, and its purpose was to collect the needs and wants (and don’t want) of the people who live, work, and own businesses in the area. According to David Drown, Economic Development Director of Silver Bay, the survey “gave us a lot of guidance.”
The guidance that was collected helped to inform the Minnesota Design team, which is a volunteer group of planners, architects, landscape architects, urban designers, etc., that had been invited to Silver Bay by the Economic Development Authority (EDA) in May of 2022.
It is a competitive process to acquire the assistance of the Minnesota Design team, who selects one or two communities to provide their expertise to each year, and the efforts and enthusiasm of the community made it possible to be selected through an application process. As they spent a weekend in Silver Bay, they got the lay of the land (and the water) and met with businesses and community members to talk about a long-term plan for the development of downtown Silver Bay.
“They never saw the kind of turnout in a small town that Silver Bay generated for the process. It speaks well for our residents,” David stated. Over three sessions, over two hundred took part in the civil engagement process discussing their ideas, concerns, and what they would like to see in their community.
“At the end of the day, people came out with some visions,” said Nelson French, Volunteer Chair of the Silver Bay EDA. “In the past year, the EDA, the city council, and others have contracted with a professional to take some of these ideas and thoughts and visions and scope them out in a sequential concept of what downtown could be and the steps we could take to get there incrementally.”
Meetings have occurred with businesses downtown in the past few months to discuss the developments that have been suggested. “We’ve made some progress,” David said. “It’s about time in that process to involve the public.”
According to Nelson, “At the high level we’re basically bringing back to the community a rearticulation or an enhanced vision of what they shared with us.” David quipped, “at least we hope so!”
The upcoming community meeting is not a formal presentation, but more of a forum to share the culmination of all the work that has been done to get to this point in the planning and for the public to provide feedback. The goal is to come to a consensus on what may work best for the community and complement some of the projects already in flight.
One of these projects is a 5-million-dollar construction to redesign the multi-modal trail system to continue from Silver Bay to Tettegouche State Park. In addition, a trail center is slated to be built which will have large parking lots to accommodate those bringing in trailers and for the large volume of visitors coming to see the leaves change colors in the fall. This area will also include a meeting space, lockers, and possibly shuttles to bring visitors around the area and will make Silver Bay the center of the whole trail network up and down the shore.
Another project that is closely related to the concept is the county rebuilding Bank Drive, running it from Outer Drive to Davis Drive. Depending on the decision of the community, the reconstruction of the road might be unnecessary. With some of the new concept designs, Davis Drive (currently a very low traffic road), would be eliminated and Shopping Center Road would be redesigned to support main street development. Eliminating the road would also help create more green space down to the creek system.
Some of the concept ideas include improving circulation to the shopping center while improving the parking lot, subdividing Outer Drive parcels for development, developing additional senior housing, multi-family housing developments, and aligning the post office with existing storefronts.
The heart of the development is creating the central park for the community that will include an amphitheater and band shell. With the popularity of the Music in the Park series in Silver Bay, one can envision some rocking and rolling Friday nights throughout the summer.
I am not doing the concept designs justice in my brief descriptions and hope that everyone takes advantage of the meeting to see the vision on paper. Everyone is encouraged to attend the community meeting on Tuesday, July 25th at ReUnion Hall at 6:30 PM to see the dream getting closer and closer to reality and to provide important input. “It is essential the residents get to have a voice,” said David. “They are the drivers of success.”
After I met with David and Nelson, I drove around Silver Bay and could see how much potential it has to offer. With this newspaper gig, I will have a lot of opportunity to keep an eye on how the development…develops. I’m looking forward to seeing the vision come to fruition!
Feel free to contact me at sarahwritesnsj@yahoo.com with any news we should news about!
