Jazz, Haircuts and Microbews: Traverse City's Warehouse District

A Press-Ready Travel Feature 
From the Traverse City Convention & Visitors Bureau

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Michael A. Norton
Media Relations
(800) 940-1120; (231) 947-1120, fax (231) 947-2621
mnorton@mytraversecity.com
Photo Credit: Traverse City Convention & Visitors Bureau

Cutline: Entrepreneurs like Mike Curths (shown here at his InsideOut Gallery, an underground “outsider art” and nightclub) are taking advantage of low rents and large vacant building in Traverse City’s little-known Warehouse District. In the process, they’re transforming the neglected area into an offbeat new entertainment and retail district.

(Other high-resolution photos available on request.)

By MIKE NORTON
TRAVERSE CITY – There aren’t many barber shops that double as brewpubs. Or art galleries that double as nightclubs.

But that’s the way things seem to be shaping up in Traverse City’s long-neglected Warehouse District, where a coterie of unconventional entrepreneurs is creating a new kind of business district in a little-known corner of this Lake Michigan resort community.

This summer Russ Springsteen, a licensed barber with a passion for making beer, will launch the brewing component of his Salon/Saloon, a barber shop/styling salon/brewpub that he’s been working on for almost two years. When his Right Brain Brewery opens in July, patrons in the existing styling salon and barber shop will be able to amble over to the 70-seat pub for a handcrafted ale without ever leaving the huge former warehouse in which the complex is being housed.

Once he’s fully up and running, Springsteen (who learned the brewer’s trade working at two other area breweries, Mackinaw Brewing and Grand Traverse Brewing) intends to offer 20 different styles of beer on tap. And he is deliberately leaving the building’s original ceiling joists and concrete floors in place – even the décor he’s chosen echoes its industrial past.

“It’s a little offbeat, but I think that’s part of the attraction,” he says. “Every town ought to have a place like this, something that’s a bit out of the ordinary.”

The same could be said about the InsideOut Gallery, which occupies the next warehouse down the alley, where owner Mike Curths specializes in gritty urban “outsider art.” In the back of the gallery, the warehouse opens up into a cavernous performance space frequented by artsy patrons who like their jazz, folk and alternative pop without smoke or alcohol.

“We’re looking for more of a New York or London look than most other places around here,” says Curths, a New York native who came to Traverse City by way of southern California. “Fortunately I like working in a big warehouse. I’m not into hardwood floors and chandeliers and things like that.”

Curths opened InsideOut two years ago with 900 square feet of gallery space. Today, the combined exhibit and performance areas total nearly 6,000 square feet, making it the largest urban art gallery in the Midwest. Its regular concert schedule, which features acts like Victor! fix the sun, Steeltoe, Sista Otis, the Jeff Haas Quartet, Seth Bernard and Daisy Mae, has been aided by local college radio station WNMC, which broadcasts its monthly “Sunday Jazz Brunch” live from the club.

Still, few visitors to this Lake Michigan vacation beach town are aware that Traverse City even possesses such a thing as a Warehouse District. Even though it’s just west of the city’s downtown and the sandy shore of Grand Traverse Bay, the gritty block-long stretch of Garland Street with its cinderblock garages, converted motels and empty warehouses is a far cry from the manicured neighborhoods and parks that prevail elsewhere in the town.

The district’s origins lie in the 1800s, when the city’s waterfront was lined with sawmills, lumberyards, factories and shipping wharves instead of resort beaches, volleyball courts and bikepaths. In fact, the region’s increasing popularity as a vacation and retirement destination has been steadily nibbling away at the old industrial area, as developers find more profitable uses for the valuable bayfront land it occupies.

Suddenly, though, the city is showing new interest in reviving the area as an edgier alternative to the upscale boutiques and shops along Front Street in its well-groomed downtown. When Springsteen first opened his warehouse beauty salon back in 2005, local officials thought he was taking a big risk – but they didn’t place any extra obstacles in his way. (In fact, they actually removed one particularly large obstacle by, tearing down a decommissioned power plant across the street and opening up new views of the water.)

And now they’re actively helping – with plans for a lighted walkway and even a footbridge to bring pedestrians from downtown across the nearby Boardman River and eventually to the beach. City planning officials say they now consider the district “ripe for redevelopment” as an eclectic area of mixed shopping, dining and entertainment.

And the district does seem to be picking up steam. In addition to InsideOut Gallery and Salon/Saloon, the Garland Street block features a natural foods restaurant, an antique shop, a stained-glass studio, a pottery and an interior lighting gallery – interspersed with existing warehouses, a muffler shop, an oil depot and a few other holdovers from its industrial days. The newcomers have even formed their own business association and begun a joint branding initiative.

“There’s really a lot going on in this place,” says Curths. “People are beginning to pay attention.”

For more information about nightlife and other activities in the Traverse City area this year, as well as a comprehensive listing of restaurants, accommodations and attractions in the area, contact the Traverse City Convention & Visitors Bureau at 1-800-TRAVERSE or on line at www.VisitTraverseCity.com