Fading retail epicenters, Traverse City’s weirdest winter on record, a pop star, and, road construction. What do these things have in common? They were all subjects of some of The Ticker’s very biggest stories of 2024. Today, we wish you a Merry Christmas as we look back through our eight most widely-read stories of the year.

8. Veterans Drive Reconstruction Starts July 22; More City Projects on Deck

Road construction was a big part of day-to-day life in Traverse City this year, so it’s no surprise that a story about it made our top eight. What is surprising is that the road construction article to tally the widest reach was this one from July 14, which focused more on the start of a three-month closure on Veterans Drive than on the then-in-progress Grandview Parkway project. Together, those closures made for a memorable – if occasionally frustrating – summer of gridlock, extended trip times, and alternate routes.

7. What's Next For The Grand Traverse Mall?

The question posed by the headline of our seventh biggest story of the year clearly resonated with locals. Our October 8 examination of the Grand Traverse Mall and its slow decline reached 105,000 people on Facebook and garnered 470 comments, ranging from memories about the mall’s glory days to suggestions for how the building could be repurposed. The story also proved to be prophetic: One question explored in the article was whether Macy’s, one of the mall’s key anchor retailers, would stay afloat for long. Two weeks and one day after this story ran, The Ticker broke the news that the Traverse Macy’s store would close sometime in 2025.

6. A New Dawn For Logan’s Landing?

Speaking of once-thriving Traverse City retail hubs, this story about a potential reinvention for Logan’s Landing also made a big splash. The Ticker reported on August 13 that the western half of the complex had a new owner. “It has so much potential, I hope they do something super cool with it,” one reader commented.

5. Winter Is (Not) Coming

Most seasons don’t merit multiple full stories about weather abnormalities, but last winter was an exception. This piece, from February 7, looked at how 50-degree days and a dearth of snow were impacting local ski resorts, outdoor recreation, winter tourism, and the local economy. We didn’t know the half of it at that point – the ensuing weeks brought both a 73-degree February day and a federal disaster declaration – but the conversation struck a nerve anyway, with this article garnering 34,000 pageviews on our website, a Facebook reach of 129,400, and more than 300 comments.

4. Mammoth Owners Plot Massive Distilling Operation, Agritourism Hub For Former Pugsley Site

After years of speculation about what would happen at the former Pugsley Correctional Facility in Kingsley – failed plans range from a manufacturing epicenter to a homeless shelter – the answer finally arrived this summer. Helped along by a $2 million allocation in Michigan’s 2025 state budget, Mammoth Distilling is purchasing Pugsley with plans to redevelop it into a massive contract distilling facility and agricultural tourism hub. The Ticker broke the news on those plans in July, going in-depth with Mammoth owner Chad Munger about what he called “an attempt to change Michigan agriculture writ large.”

3. Former Kmart Building Becomes CLEAR Center; Retail, Recreational, Housing Projects Eyed for Property

One reason The Ticker started asking questions about the futures of Logan’s Landing and the Grand Traverse Mall? The successful reinvention of the Cherryland Mall, from a faded shopping center into a new regional hub. Case-in-point is Cherryland’s former Kmart, which rebranded this year as the Center for Lifetime Engagement, Activity, and Renewal (CLEAR). Building upon success with tenants like the Traverse City Curling Club and the Traverse City Philharmonic, CLEAR Center leaders are looking at everything from multifamily housing to a trampoline park for the site. Our reporting on the transformation in May netted a Facebook reach of 142,300.

2. Notes From The National Cherry Festival Airshow: Noise Warnings, Aircraft, And Local Stories

Traverse Citians love the National Cherry Festival Airshow. If that wasn’t clear from this year’s debate about how the airshow should proceed given rapidly increasing traffic at Cherry Capital Airport, it was certainly evident when this Ticker story landed on June 23. Featuring a detailed rundown of the itinerary, aircraft, and pilots (some of them local!) to be featured in the 2024 airshow, this story was one of two Ticker features this year to surpass a 150,000-person reach on social media. “They make me proud to be an American,” one reader wrote of the show’s 2024 headliners, the U.S. Navy Blue Angels.

1. Jewel Returns To Interlochen

Before she became a multiplatinum recording artist and one of the biggest pop stars of the ‘90s, Jewel Kilcher was a student at Interlochen Arts Academy. Ahead of her return to Interlochen for an August 5 concert at Kresge Auditorium, Jewel sat down with Ticker sister publication Northern Express and shared her whole Interlochen story, from hitchhiking her way to northern Michigan to writing one of her signature songs, “Who Will Save Your Soul,” on the Kresge stage. The Express story had so many good tidbits we simply had to run it on The Ticker, where it tallied 39,000 pageviews, reached 204,000 people on Facebook, and garnered 3,800 likes and 332 shares.

Jewel herself shared the Express version of the article on social media, calling Interlochen her hometown – despite actually growing up in Alaksa. “I’m so excited to be back playing in a place that sparked so much creative passion for me all those years ago,” she wrote. “I can’t wait to see you at Kresge. Thank you Northern Express for this wonderful article.”