The recent addition of two footbridges at the Brown Bridge Quiet Area – forming a complete trail loop around the property – has dramatically increased usage at the site, turning it into a hiking and recreational destination. Now the Grand Traverse Conservation District (GTCD), which manages the city-owned property, hopes to duplicate its success with a new 200-foot bridge over Sabin Pond that would form a complete trail loop around the Grand Traverse Natural Education Reserve and connect to a new incubator farm planned at the historic Meyer Property on Keystone Road. GTCD staff, who are launching a $1.6 million fundraising campaign for the bridge and farm this fall, hope the project will transform the site into a regional destination for hiking, outdoor recreation, agriculture, and educational programming.

Approximately $1.2 million of the campaign would pay for construction of a new 200-foot bridge spanning the location where Sabin Dam used to be. The bridge is designed in such a way as to span the floodplain and allow the river to flow freely underneath it, accommodating the passage of wildlife and recreational users. “When Sabin Dam was in existence, it provided a bridge across the river,” says GTCD Boardman River Program Coordinator Steve Largent. “People used it daily to get from one side of the river to the other. Once the dam went away, that bridge went away.” While hikers at the Boardman River Nature Center on Cass Road must now turn back where trails dead-end at the river, the new bridge would connect to a trail system on the other side, forming a complete loop around the reserve and connecting the Nature Center with the Meyer Property and potentially beyond to the Keystone Soccer Complex.

That river crossing is important not only for recreation but for GTCD operations, according to staff. The Conservation District recently signed a 20-year lease agreement – with an additional 15-year renewal option – with Grand Traverse County Parks and Recreation to use the 15-acre Meyer house property and its outbuildings for a new project called the Great Lakes Incubator Farm. GTCD aims to give college graduates and young farmers access to land and equipment to get practical hands-on training in agriculture, teaching them both farming and business fundamentals and connecting them with mentors and property owners with land to sell. The project aims to address a growing attrition rate in farming as retirees leave the field: According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), farmers over the age of 65 now outnumber those under 35 by more than six to one, with young farmers facing obstacles include rising land costs, student loan debt, lack of training, and limited healthcare options.

Lauren Silver, a Michigan Agriculture Environmental Assurance Program (MAEAP) technician with GTCD, says the Conservation District is “trying to create a greater experience for the visitors” to the Nature Center, education reserve, and incubator farm by linking the various sites and programming together and making them publicly accessible. “It’s a space for the broader public to learn about food and farming systems and resource conservation,” she says of the new farm.

GTCD Executive Director Koffi Kpachavi told Parks and Recreation commissioners the incubator farm will focus on regenerative agriculture and sustainable practices, with an emphasis on organic farming; no toxic pesticides or other environmentally harmful products will be used on the property.

GTCD Community Engagement Specialist Irene Stibitz says now is the ideal time to build the Sabin bridge, because the area around the site is just beginning to recover from the dam removal project. “The area is healing right now, which is why it’s the perfect time to put the bridge in,” she says. “If you do it in ten years, you’ll disrupt a landscape that’s healed. With it going in now, everything heals together.” Stibitz says the bridge will allow both children and adult programs at the Nature Center to easily access the incubator farm; as one example, nature day campers could participate in field trips over to the farm to learn about agriculture. GTCD is hosting a Farm Field Day today (Friday) at the Meyer property with adult education sessions on various farming topics, with the goal of offering more such community programming in the future (registration for today’s event is full).

The remaining $400,000 of GTCD’s $1.6 million capital campaign this fall will go toward launching the incubator farm. Site work is already underway, with the goal of putting in cover crops and preparing fields for planting in 2022. GTCD hopes to have at least one to two farmers on-site next year, eventually adding more farmers and expanding the program as funding is available and site restoration takes place. “It will likely be a phased-out process of updating and making those buildings usable,” says Silver. She adds GTCD is pursuing multiple funding options to meet the capital campaign goal for both the bridge and farm, including seeking grants – such as from the USDA – along with sponsorships and community donations. 

More phases of work to improve trail connectivity and expand the incubator farm could be in store for the future. Largent says GTCD hopes to eventually build another bridge – called the Lone Pine Bridge – to connect two trail systems separated by the Boardman River near the Keystone and Hoch intersection. That would extend the continuous trail loop down the Keystone corridor all the way to the Beitner canoe landing. That intersection is itself being reimagined; with the Grand Traverse County Road Commission planning a roundabout at Keystone/Beitner/River Road, talks are focusing on relocating and combining the Lone Pine and Keystone Rapids trailheads into one new trailhead located on a spur off the roundabout, reducing traffic conflicts that would result from having multiple trailhead parking lots near the roundabout.

GTCD has also had preliminary discussions with Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore about offering a potential “phase two” of the Great Lakes Incubator Farm on the historic Port Oneida property. “Because the Meyer property is limited in space, there are certain crops that might not be as feasible there, or operations like livestock or animal husbandry, that might be really suitable (at Port Oneida),” Silver says. She notes that discussions are still preliminary and focused on bringing active agriculture back to the site in a way that protects the historical integrity of the property. “We need to create the model and make sure it works well at our Meyer farm first, but we feel pretty good about the potential for growth,” she says.

Pictured (clockwise right to left): Map of Grand Traverse Natural Education Reserve and planned locations of new Sabin bridge and Great Lakes Incubator Farm; rendering of new Sabin bridge; GTCD staff at Meyer property, future site of the Great Lakes Incubator Farm