Back to the Future, Downtown Manistee

Moving Spirit wine shop and art gallery

This is the second installment in a series of blogs about the entrepreneurial mettle that Manistee is relying on to move forward in Michigan’s changing economy.

There is a phenomenon that historic preservationists talk about, how an economic downturn can actually help preserve the character of a place. Intuitively we can see how this makes sense. When a community faces closed factories and loss of population, investment dollars go elsewhere and buildings become frozen in time. In an ideal situation, when good times return, those buildings are ready to be nurtured back to life with a careful hand that respects the heritage and understands how the power of the heritage can be used to inspire businesses and appeal to customers today.

The Ideal Kitchen culinary shop

This sort of thing is happening now in downtown Manistee. In the past few years, new entrepreneurs have moved into storefronts on First St., storefronts that had been long ignored, and so still retained their cultural richness. On a walking tour of downtown with Mayor Cyndy Fuller and community activist Tim Ervin, we stopped in to retail shops that completely nailed the weaving together of classic architecture with contemporary presentation, places like The Moving Spirit wine shop and art gallery and The Ideal Kitchen, which sells culinary gear for today’s more devoted cooks.

Vogue Theater awaits rebirth

The next big thing that downtown Manistee needs is to bring the Vogue movie theater back to life, the mayor told me. We’ve seen in Traverse City how a movie theater can do amazing things to ignite the spirit of a town. If Manistee can bring films and film lovers back, I have no doubt the town would see more people on the streets, more people in the coffee shops and restaurants, and even more coffee houses and restaurants for them to hang out in—more opportunity to leverage the richness of that Victorian architecture. There are reportedly some exciting things going on behind the scenes to get the Vogue lights turned back on, so stay tuned for this big next step.

Coming up:
Checking in with the new windmill manufacturer
Stopping by the movie set and meeting two young film entrepreneurs

Jeff Smith is editor of Traverse, Northern Michigan's Magazine

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