Leelanau County's Brownfield Redevelopment Authority next month expects to review a "brownfield plan" for what is now the Leelanau County courthouse campus in Leland.

Community Planning and Community Development department head Trudy Galla reported that the authority last week heard from representatives of Varley-Kelly Properties, which hopes to redevelop the 2-plus acre county campus into a residential neighborhood when the county seat moves to Suttons Bay Township next year.

Galla said the brownfield authority board learned that Varley-Kelly Properties hopes to apply for some $900,000 in grants and loans from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality to help pay for environmental assessments of the county property. The money would also be used to demolish county buildings on the site, dispose of any contaminated soil, or contain any other environmental hazards that may be discovered there.

The developers hope to put 22 to 25 units on the property in a mix of housing types – single and multi-family. They submitted a bid of $2.4 million to purchase the property once the courthouse and other county facilities are vacated.

The county Road Commission last week approved the developer’s request to “vacate” Cedar Street, which currently runs between the courthouse and the old jail in Leland. Multi-family housing units would be developed on the old right-of-way.

James Varley, and an engineer that he and his partner Gene Kelly have employed, appeared at the Sept. 18 monthly meeting of the Brownfield Redevelopment Authority, Galla reported.

She said they presented a tentative plan for redeveloping the county courthouse property as “brownfield” project, but that a more formal and complete plan would be presented at the authority’s Oct. 16 meeting.

The Leland project is the second major project undertaken by the county’s Brownfield Redevelopment Authority since it was established earlier this year. The other project, proposed in Elmwood Township, involves redevelopment of an old petroleum depot in Greilickville for use as a marina. That plan includes digging a pedestrian tunnel under M-22.