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City asks staff to explore joint Carnegie Building use after tied RFPs and public outcry
Summary
After hours of public testimony and a tied evaluation of two proposals, the city commission directed the city manager to convene Crooked Tree Arts Center and the Traverse Area District Library to explore whether both organizations can share the Carnegie Building and to return with a recommendation by May 18.
The Traverse City City Commission on April 20 directed the city manager to convene the Crooked Tree Arts Center and the Traverse Area District Library to explore whether the two organizations can jointly occupy the city-owned Carnegie Building and to return to the commission with a recommendation by May 18.
City Manager Benjamin Marantad outlined staff's recommendation after telling commissioners the two submitted proposals were effectively tied on the scoring rubric and that community feedback had been intense. Marantad said staff would negotiate possible lease arrangements and bring back options for the commission to consider.
Commissioners and residents spent more than an hour in public comment, with presenters offering contrasting views. Supporters of the library stressed professional curatorial experience and the need to make the Con Foster collection publicly accessible after years in storage. Supporters of Crooked Tree emphasized the arts center's year-round programming, classes and visitor numbers, and warned that an abrupt relocation would disrupt services and fundraising.
"It's a tie, like 120 to 120, a plain out tie," one commissioner said when describing the staff scoring, urging the commission to explore a collaborative solution rather than a binary choice.
Several commissioners said they wanted to preserve an operating tenant's ability to plan while testing whether a shared model is feasible. The commission's motion directed the city manager to convene discussions with both applicants, test the feasibility of a joint-occupancy model, and return with a recommendation no later than May 18. The motion passed on a roll call vote.
What happens next: the city manager will lead facilitated conversations with both organizations, and staff expects to bring back either a proposed joint-occupancy arrangement or a recommendation if talks do not produce a viable shared model. The commission also asked staff to present possible lease-extension terms so the current tenant would not be forced into abrupt relocation while talks proceed.
Why it matters: The Carnegie Building is a high-profile downtown civic asset with competing public missions: curated local history and rotating arts programming. The commission's instruction seeks to balance continuity of public programming with a long-term plan for stewardship of historical collections and building maintenance.
Speakers quoted in this article come from the meeting record and were limited to those who self-identified or were explicitly introduced during the meeting.
