It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas … in Elmwood Township.

PICNIC TABLES are stored for the winter under a pavilion
at Harbor Park in Elmwood Township. Last week, township
officials learned that a state grant and funding from the
W.K. Kellogg Foundation will help fund improvements to
the park.

The township government received an unexpected gift from a non-profit foundation to go along with a state grant that will help pay for some $657,300 in improvements to Greilickville Harbor Park.

"It's a good time of year to get some good news from Lansing," said Klaus Heinert, a landscape architect who has also been the architect of a grant funding campaign seeking money for improvements to the park and adjacent Elmwood Township Marina.

Township officials were hopeful that the state would come through with a $420,700 grant to fund 64 percent of the cost for improvements to the park. The funding plan also called for $236,600 from township coffers — $181,600 from the flush marina fund, and $55,000 from the strapped General Fund.

The General Fund allocation was included in early budgets for 2008, but removed along with other cuts initiated by the Township Board after the latest millage request to fund the township fire department was defeated.

Enter the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, which chose the Elmwood grant application and two others for additional funding from a list of 34 grants awarded by the Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund.

With help from the Kellogg Foundation and its "Access to Recreation" program, no monies from the township General Fund will be needed for the Greilickville Harbor Park renovation, Heinert said. The township was not required to apply for the Kellogg program, which instead chose projects from the list of Trust Fund awards that placed an emphasis on public access.

Heinert said a barrier-free "promenade" connecting the park with the marina along the shoreline of West Grand Traverse Bay played heavily into Kellogg's decision. Also helping: A relief map that blind visitors can read with their hands.

Also planned are improved parking and more recreational opportunities, including new pavilions.

Elmwood supervisor Derith Smith was happy with the news.

"We are greatly enhancing the recreational opportunities to everyone in the township, at no expense to them," said Smith. "Basically, the Kellogg Foundation is picking up half of the cost of the whole project."

Indeed, the Access to Recreation Grant will pay for one-half of both the state's and the township's share. The new formula has the Kellogg Foundation providing $328,600, the state Trust Fund contributing $210,300, and the township share reduced to $118,300. As now envisioned, all township money for the project would come from the township marina fund, which according to the latest township audit entered the 2007 fiscal year with assets that included $709,521 in cash and investments.

The Greilickville Harbor Park improvement is one of a trio of projects planned by the township:

• A grant requesting $291,000 toward the $650,000 required to build a third dock that will greatly enlarge the marina's capacity has been approved, with construction scheduled to begin this summer. The long-awaited dock, which has been in the design phase for four years, will add 57 new slips to the marina, increasing the marina's number of slips to 177.

Heinert reported that he is finalizing bid specifications with MDNR staffers. The township share of the grant would again be drawn from the marina fund, which has been built up with fees paid by slip users, boat owners who lease storage space at the marina, and those who use the township launching ramp.

"The goal is to get it in during the (boating) season," said Heinert.

• Also sought, but probably not available immediately, is more than $1.5 million in state Waterways Department funding for a massive upgrade to the marina that will include new buildings and a revamped parking scheme. Anticipated cost of the project is $2.1 million.

"I'm not going to hold my breadth" for fast approval, warned Heinert, as state funding for similar grants has been cut back. But eventually the township may receive funding, and if it does the marina fund should have had time to regenerate.

"(Elmwood Township) should be gaining revenue that we need to leverage that grant," explained Heinert.

An immediate need associated with higher use at the park and marina will not be met by the grants, Heinert said. None of the requests contain funding for new restrooms at Harbor Park, which is now only serviced by a Porta-john.

But the township is hoping to partner with Rotary Charities and Traverse City Light and Power, which owns waterfront property nearby, to fund the project estimated to cost $120,000 to $140,000.

"(The restroom facility) will also serve the evolving Grand Traverse Bay Alliance," said Heinert. He was referring to waterfront property in the hands of Rotary Charities that is being used to headquarter the Maritime Heritage Alliance, Great Lakes Children's Museum and the Watershed Center Grand Traverse Bay. All are non-profit organizations.