Grand Marais officials break ground for new city hall/liquor store | WTIP (2024)

Grand Marais Mayor Tracy Benson, along with city council members, builders and architects, hosted a community groundbreaking ceremony on Friday, April 12, to celebrate the city hall and liquor store redevelopment project. The new city hall and liquor store are anticipated to be completed in January, 2025.

Find the photo gallery, event transcript and audio below.

MAYOR BENSON
On behalf of the City Council, both past and present, because this has been a long conversation, welcome to our celebration. It’s a big day for Grand Marais. Not often do we have the privilege of shepherding a project like this through, and the Council is excited to be part of the many changes coming to our downtown landscape.

At my first Council meeting back in 2015, the agenda item was the final report given to us to determine where this building sat, and it was clearly stated that it was not economically feasible to remodel this building. And so with that, we began our many conversations about what to build, where to build, what would it all look like, what would be in it, what would be included, what not. And then with all government projects, this became another learning experience for me as an exercise in patience.

And I’m thrilled to say that our new building will have more public restroom space, increased capacity for engaged citizens to join us at our Council meetings, and a very serious liquor store. And I’m looking forward to Councillor Craig Schulte’s concept of a revolving wrapped beer can sign as a beacon to the best municipal liquor store along the North Shore. And speaking of the liquor store, I’d like to start out with a really big thank you to the liquor store crew, and Cheryl’s here with Sierra on behalf of Chris Levine, our manager, because he’s out, he’s away, missing all the fun today.

So the liquor store crew had the truly heavy lift of moving many fragile items, inventory, coolers, and then resetting them down the street. And so along with our city crew, they did a lot of work outfitting the building and getting ready for their temporary location. And also a big thank you to Tyson Cronberg for allowing us to use his iconic space, the Beaver House, to have a temporary home for our liquor store.

So when you get over to our open house celebration at the Beaver House, please raise a glass to Chris and his crew for all they’ve done to get us up and running with the new liquor store temporary. And I’d now like to introduce to our two main key partners in all of this, and ask them to say a few words, our architects LHB, Brandee Lian and Mike Fischer. They’re part of the group responsible for bringing our vision to life, all while exhibiting a lot of patience themselves as we debated many important details.

And they also introduced us to some innovative possibilities like our thermal heat pump and our green roof. And so with that, Brandee and Mike.

MIKE FISCHER
Well, thank you. It’s an honor to be here. I’ve worked in Grand Marais and had property in Cook County for 30-some years, and I love this place.

So every time we get a chance to work in Grand Marais, we love it and are honored to do it. So it’s been a really fun project, and we look forward to it really getting going here. Brandee, do you want to?

Brandi does all the work, by the way. (laughter)

BRANDEE LIAN
I’m just very excited to see this finally moving forward and excited to see what it’s going to look like. And we have great partners in McGough Construction. They do really great work. We’re looking forward to it.

MAYOR BENSON
Thank you, and thanks for that lead-in. Next up with us is Jim Frisell, first off, and we’re excited to have him back at the helm and impressed by their work on our public works garage. The council is confident they’re going to put together another outstanding building for us.

And last but not least, John Haggenmiller, construction supervisor. He was with us on our last project, so we’re really excited to have him back and for your regular council meetings with us for all the updates, which he loves to do. We’ve got new counselors for you to meet later.

So when McGough presented their final design to us and work piece, and they have their nice typical project management timeline, my eyes went right to the very end of that project timeline and looked at the date. And December 18th brought a real smile to my face. And I’m now counting on you guys to deliver my birthday present with no belated best wishes.

There’s also people we need to recognize, which is our city crew and our city administrator, Mike Roth. He’s been with us since day one, and now the last couple months has just been a big blur as he’s had to get the building prepped to evacuate and the city staff and crew shifted to new operations. Mike.

MIKE ROTH
Thanks, Tracy. What an honor it is to get to be here in this community when this project is happening. It’s not something that every administrator has to deal with or gets to deal with.

And I feel so fortunate that I’m here when this is happening right now, and I’ll do my best to make sure this project is something the community can be proud of for many more generations. And I just want to echo what Tracy said about all the hard work that our staff’s been doing to get ready for this project. It’s been an immense amount of work relocating, getting this building ready to get torn down.

The liquor store staff, the property maintenance staff, really all of our staff has stepped up in a big way and I appreciate everything they’ve done.

MAYOR BENSON
Yes, as always, it’s great. Thank you everyone for taking the time to join us today. And now it’s time to say a big heartfelt goodbye to our former fire hall, our cop shop, and our powerhouse, the home of many good stories.

And please join us for delicious snacks brought to you by Superior Creamery and beverages from our liquor store vendors. And mark your calendars for January 2025, exactly 10 years, when we will be welcoming all of you to our new city hall liquor store and public restaurants.