Grand Traverse County Parks and Recreation commissioners will review a proposed business plan for Camp Greilick Thursday – a document outlining planned uses for the county’s newest 196-acre park, including a phased rollout of recreational improvements and activities. County Director of Parks and Facilities John Chase says the goal is to open Camp Greilick to the public this year, starting with access to trails. The county is also in talks with North Sky Raptor Sanctuary for Camp Greilick to become the nonprofit’s new home, creating northern Michigan’s first public raptor center.

The Parks and Recreation Commission’s strategic planning committee worked for several months to create a draft business plan for Camp Greilick after the county purchased the site for $3 million last August. An initial version of the draft was posted online in late 2024, with public feedback used to refine its contents. Parks and Recreation commissioners will see the latest version Thursday and either vote to adopt it – after which it would go to county commissioners for approval – or make further changes before approving and sending it on. County commissioners have said they want to see a completed business plan before making any more budget allocations to the park.

The latest plan states that the vision for Camp Greilick – located in the Forest Lakes area in the southeast corner of Grand Traverse County – is to “protect and preserve the conservation value of the property and dedicate it as a public space where county residents and visitors can experience passive and active outdoor recreation, learn to be better stewards of the environment, and develop skills to improve their outdoor experience.”

A conservation easement on the site “restricts the activities that can occur and how the property is maintained,” the plan notes. The county intends to strengthen the terms of that easement “to further protect the natural areas,” including increasing the riparian buffer zone from 100 feet to 200 feet around the lakes. The park has 4,310 feet of combined frontage on Rennie, Spider, and Bass lakes, with the majority – 3,300 feet – on Rennie Lake. The expanded riparian buffer zone will help preserve shoreline vegetation and reduce runoff from surrounding land, according to the plan. The county has already banned outside watercraft from being launched on all three lakes from Camp Greilick.

The property has approximately 87,000 square feet of developed space, with additional development allowed up to 174,000 square feet. “This includes buildings, other permanent structures, and impervious surfaces,” the plan notes. However, the county aims “to reduce the amount of developable area to a total of 130,000 square feet, with a maximum of 40,000 square feet in the area known as the common use area.” While several buildings are in poor shape and planned to be demolished, others – including restrooms, shower houses, cabins, the Besser Lodge, the chapel, and the outdoor amphitheater – will be renovated and put back into use.

Improvements and uses are proposed to be rolled out in five phases. The first phase includes trail access, kayak and paddleboard rentals, disc golf course access, fishing, swimming (at Rennie Lake), picnic pavilion rentals, and a bouldering wall. Chase says the first priority is to make at least part of the trail system accessible to the public this year. “We can’t see the trails right now because of the snow on the ground, so we don’t know yet how they will need to be maintained or changed, but that’s what we want to open first for the park,” he says. A work group including representatives from the North Country Trail Association, TART Trails, Northern Michigan Mountain Bike Association, and more has been assembled to give trail input. Chase says the county will also work with the City of Traverse City to coordinate trail access with the adjacent Brown Bridge Quiet Area.

Phase two includes cabin rentals, semi-rustic cabin camping, outdoor education skills and environmental education programming, camp programming, orienteering courses, and lodge rentals. Phase three covers amphitheater/fire bowl rentals, chapel rentals, a teams course, a climbing/zip line tower, and hunting. Phase four includes an archery range and rifle and shotgun ranges (environmental clean-up work will need to occur first to mitigate lead contamination from previous gun range activity). Finally, phase five includes rustic tent or hammock-only camping. There are currently 66 individual campsites in 11 defined groupings throughout the property. Those groupings used to be served by a common restroom privy in each area, but in the future will be served by portapotties or permanent restrooms, in addition to a centrally located shower house.

It will likely take many years to progress through all the phases, Chase notes, who adds that not all improvements in one phase must be completed before others in the next phase can begin. Park funding is anticipated to come from a combination of rentals, amenity usage, and programming, plus an annual allocation from a dedicated park endowment fund and support from the county’s general fund. Nearly $1.9 million in capital improvements are expected to be needed at Camp Greilick, in addition to ongoing staff, maintenance, insurance, utility, and other costs.

Also on the table is the opportunity for North Sky Raptor Sanctuary to make its new home at Camp Greilick. Parks and Recreation commissioners last month unanimously approved exploring a potential partnership with the nonprofit, which is a state and federally licensed bird of prey rehabilitation facility currently located in Interlochen. The organization accepts birds from 29 counties and counting, averaging 130 animal patients and 25 surgeries annually. The organization averages a 60 percent healthy release rate – the national average is 36 percent – with 15 non-releasable birds placed as ambassadors across the country.

North Sky is proposing to redevelop or replace the Outpost building at Camp Greilick as a public education center, with space for animal intake and hospital areas, a store, and an office. The organization hopes the site can become northern Michigan’s first public raptor center – “providing a major daytime attraction for school trips, camp groups, and locals alike,” according to presentation materials. Live raptors on display, touch and audio stations, an outdoor interpretative trail/raptor row, hands-on activities, and public presentations at the outdoor amphitheater are all envisioned in the plan. The group also points to the future possibility of using Besser Lodge for rehabilitative and veterinary conferences and adding a “flyway” structure, which could allow for bald eagle rehabilitations, displays, and releases.

At a Parks and Recreation strategic planning subcommittee meeting Tuesday, Chase said an architect for North Sky visited the property this month and is now working on options to either rehabilitate the existing Outpost building or raze it and build a new center. Developing those options into concept plans will help determine the feasibility of the partnership and fundraising goals North Sky would need to hit to move forward, Chase said.