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Downtown Alpena has just about everything a tourist would want.
You can shop. You can dine indoors and outdoors. You can drink. You can walk and enjoy views of Thunder Bay or the Thunder Bay River.
Thanks to the recently approved social district, you can walk and drink at the same time.
But one thing you can't do is go to the bathroom, at least not without stepping inside a store or restaurant and asking to use theirs or walking down to Bay View Park to use a portable toilet.
That's why it excited us to learn that, as part of a nearly $1 million grant to remake Culligan Plaza and the nearby area, the city hopes to install a public restroom.
As part of the Culligan Plaza redesign, "we have also added a small public restroom facility at the south end of the parking lot near the Alpena Downtown Development Authority building," City Engineer Steve Shultz said in a report to the Alpena Municipal Council. "Though much needed, restrooms centrally located within the downtown were never considered for this project. We elected to include them due to the larger range of availability of funding and because they are specifically mentioned as a suggested project within the grant application instructions."
The city must pay a $118,555 match to the Public Gathering Spaces Initiative state grant.
A restroom would make downtown that much more appealing to tourists, who help drive Northeast Michigan's economy.
We're glad the city included the restroom facility in the Culligan Plaza plans, and we can't wait to see it become a reality.