Local social media pages lit up this week with the news that the former site of Fun Country, a long-shuttered adventure park in Interlochen, had finally been leveled to make way for a new construction project. The new build will bring both residential and commercial units to that site, with developers saying that there could be finished homes on the property as early as this fall. As this same time, a piece of property in the Chums Corner area near Turtle Creek Stadium is currently being developed into a business that will be half dog park, half bar. The Ticker has the scoop on both of these south-of-TC projects.

The project headed for the old Fun Country site is called “The Hudson” and is a mixed-use development that will include single-family homes, multi-family apartment buildings, and a four-unit commercial space. According to Developer Derek Becker, a 10,000-square-foot commercial building will sit closest to the road on the 9320 US-31 South parcel, with the four units intended for “four different retail stores, coffee shops, or other small businesses like that.”

Four eight-unit apartment buildings will sit behind the commercial space, while the back of the property will be split into 24 single-family homes, each occupying a one-acre lot.

The Hudson is the first new vision to emerge for the Fun Country site in the better part of the decade. Once upon a time, that park – which sits near the “Interlochen Corners” intersection of US-31 and South Long Lake Road/J. Maddy Parkway – was a thriving summertime destination, with 40 acres of mini golf, water slides, go-kart race tracks, and more. Summer campers from the nearby Interlochen Arts Camp would often take trips to Fun Country on weekends.

Fun Country shut down in 2008 and had fallen into disrepair in the years since. In 2015, Gordon Wagner, owner of Timber Ridge RV & Recreation Resort, purchased the 40-acre parcel with a vision of turning it into an RV park. Speaking with The Ticker at the time, Wagner even floated the possibility of relocating Fun Country’s old water slides to Timber Ridge and adding water park components there.

While Wagner indicated that development at Fun Country might begin as early as winter 2015, those plans never came to fruition and the park continued to sit vacant. Eventually, Becker and his partners came along and offered to buy the property.

“We had a relationship with Gordon, because we actually grew up going to Timber Ridge,” Becker says. “Eventually, we just approached him [about the Fun Country parcel]. We knew that he had owned it, and asked if he was looking to sell it at some point.”

Gordon happily parted ways with the property, and Becker and his partners set to work developing a vision for the project.

“When we bought it, we actually didn’t really know what we wanted to do with it,” Becker says of the parcel. “But after going through the township and doing some planning on our side, we fell into the spot that we are now with a housing-focused development, just because we know how in demand housing is in the Traverse City area right now.”

True to that housing-focused approach, The Hudson will be developed on a phased basis that prioritizes the residential side of the equation. Becker says roadways for the development are already under construction now that the lot is clear, and estimates the timeline for that side of the project at 4-6 weeks.

Afterward, construction will start on the first of the single-family homes, with Becker indicating that the first 2-4 of those houses should be finished this fall. Another 4-8 houses will follow in the spring of 2024, with construction slated to start on the apartment complexes next autumn. Becker says the commercial units “will be the last pieces of the puzzle” and are “probably slated for about 24 months from now, depending on how fast the development goes.”

Meanwhile, at 4277 Village Park Drive – a parcel near Chums Corner, right across the street from the parking lot for Turtle Creek Stadium – owners Dan and Joy Goodchild are underway on a project to build a “bark and brew” establishment. The business will combine an outdoor dog park with a bar concept, which will serve beverages “tavern style, with a couple domestics and a variety of local brews as well as cider, wine, and liquor.” Bites to eat will be available from a variety of food trucks situated throughout the outdoor area.

Dan Goodchild tells The Ticker that similar dog park + beer bar concepts are springing up all over the place. In his view, the trend is taking off because it provides a place “for people who love their dogs to go hang out, socialize with other people who love their dogs, and have a drink.”

“There are a lot of bark-and-brews both in Michigan and out of state,” Goodchild says. “We’ve been to one in Ohio; we’ve been to one in North Carolina; we’ve been to a bunch. And they weren’t associated with each other at all; nobody owns the concept. But there is definitely a movement of these sort of businesses that encapsulate dogs and beers, basically.”

The local bark and brew – which will be called K&A Hop Dogs – sits on a two-acre parcel. The bar space will be “a 2,800-square-foot building, enclosed, with a full bar,” Goodchild says. “And then pretty much the entire property, except for the parking lot, is going to be fenced in for dogs to run around.”

To ensure the safest environment as possible, Goodchild says K&A Hop Dogs will be “vetting all the dogs” who come to play on the premises, as well as charging a small admittance fee for animals. “So, when we get our website up and running – hopefully in the next couple of weeks – we'll be having a place for people to upload their pet records,” he explains. “That way, we can make sure we have healthy dogs coming in there.”

Goodchild is hopeful the dog-vetting approach will create an environment where all or most dogs can be off leash. “We’ll trust the owners to make that judgment,” he says. “But then we're going to have three overhead doors on the building, and during the warmer days, we’ll have those open so the dogs can just run out in the yard and come and go as they want. And then everybody else is able to hang out and have a good time.”

The plan is for construction to run through most of the summer, with Goodchild eyeing an opening date of “maybe early September” for K&A Hop Dogs. Once open, the business will operate year-round, likely with fire pits and other warming strategies to keep the outdoor space attractive during the winter.

Right now, Goodchild says the next priority on the list is finding employees, including a bartender and “several other staff to serve and be our ‘ruff-arees.’”