News Photo by Steve Schulwitz Crews work at the construction site at Culligan Plaza on Thursday. The new plaza could be done in the fall.

ALPENA — Work on Culligan Plaza in downtown Alpena has ramped back up.

There was a brief pause in the renovation projects after the demolition stage, as city officials waited for the next contractor to begin its work, but now the area around the plaza is ripe with activity.

A full reimagined plaza and a restroom facility is being built downtown and the new plaza will include a new water feature, stage, and fire feature that will all be ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) accessible.

Alpena officials say the new plaza could be completed in the fall, if Mother Nature cooperates.

Alpena Engineer Steve Shultz said the demolition work went smoothly, but the work has been idle for the last week or so because the city is waiting for the next contractor to begin. Shultz said there are about 17 contractors who will each handle specific aspects of the project. Sometimes, he said, because they are busy, those contractors need to complete one job before moving onto the next.

“The contractor has had some material delivered to the site and we hope to see a full construction site there over the next couple of weeks,” Shultz said. “We had to have some utilities moved before they could get down and begin work. The first thing will be to get the gas line for the fire feature installed and then the water feature will be built because it has underground plumbing, so we have to have that done before we can really do anything else.”

The plaza project is funded by a Michigan Economic Development Corporation 2023 Public Gathering Space Grant for about $1 million, the First Federal Foundation of Northeastern Michigan, and the City of Alpena General Fund. The project cost is anticipated to be approximately $1.2 million. Besides the new plaza and neighboring bathrooms, work is about to begin on restrooms and a pavilion at Bay View Park.

The city received a Michigan Department of Resources Trust Fund Grant for $300,000 to cover a brunt of the cost of the project. In addition to the bathrooms and pavilion, new sidewalks and lighting will be installed.

When renderings of the plaza project were released, the excitement for the new plaza began to increase. Mayor Cindy Johnson said the anticipation for the new plaza spiked again when the demolition began.

City officials also knew there were many people in Alpena who wanted the art piece that was in the old fountain to be preserved and the city developed a plan to do just that and surprised the community by installing it in the old fountain, which wasn’t operating at the time, near the Kiwanis Kiddie Park, near the bandshell at Bay View Park.

“We knew what the community’s affection for it was, and we received a suggestion to put it in the old fountain by the kiddie park and we did,” Johnson said. “It wasn’t a huge expense and it is the perfect spot for it. We wanted it to be a kind of a gift to the people in the city.”

Steve Schulwitz can be reached at 989-358-5689 or sschulwitz@TheAlpenaNews.com. Follow him on X @ss_alpenanews.com.