Walk south on Union Street from the Boardman River and the storefronts stop looking like a commercial district and start looking like a question. The lots at 418 and 420 South Union sit dark. So does the former Blue Tractor Grill space across the street, and so does the building that used to hold Maxbauer's Market, a corner that anchored this stretch of Old Towne for decades. More than a year after the city rewrote its zoning rules specifically to draw new development into this corridor, none of it has filled in.
A few blocks away on Eighth Street, work crews are inside the old McLain's Cycle and Fitness building, tearing out fixtures for a brewery that signed its lease within the last year. If you live in Old Towne, you've probably noticed the mismatch: one part of the neighborhood is stuck, another is moving fast. The reason has less to do with what people want to open here and more to do with who owns the empty buildings, and how long those particular people are willing to wait.
The 400 Block Everyone Has an Opinion About
More than a year ago, the city approved zoning changes meant to pull new development into the Union Street corridor. The storefronts didn't fill in. A triangle of high-profile properties in the 400 block, the two adjoining lots at 418 and 420, the old Blue Tractor Grill space, and the Maxbauer's Market building, are still sitting vacant. Property owners have said inquiries keep coming in and plans keep percolating, but nothing anyone's ready to announce publicly.
The building at 407 South Union has been empty for more than two years, since its former operator relocated to South Airport Road in Garfield Township. Tom Deering, who holds the Maxbauer's Market property as trustee of the James Bernard Trust, has said a factor in the soft market is straightforward: more people buy things online now, and there's more commercial space sitting available across the Grand Traverse area than there used to be. That's a regional problem, not an Old Towne one. But it explains why a corner that's been anchored by a meat market since the early 1960s is currently anchored by nothing.
The Man Who Named the Neighborhood Owns the Building That Won't Move
Here's the detail that makes the vacancy make sense instead of just look strange. Maxbauer's Market was opened by Barney Deering, Tom's father, and later run by a cousin, Mike, after Barney retired. Barney Deering is also, according to local history writer Marty MacLeod's recent book on the neighborhood, one of the two business owners who coined the name "Old Towne" in the mid-1960s. For the hundred years before that, the district was known simply as the South Side.
So the same family that named this neighborhood still owns one of its most visible empty buildings, and Tom Deering has said he's trying to respect his father's wishes and let the situation work itself out rather than rushing to lease the space to whatever comes along. That's not a market failure. That's a family choosing patience over speed, in a building that's been in their hands for over sixty years. If you've walked past that storefront wondering why nothing has happened, the honest answer is that the people who could change it are in no hurry, and they've earned the right not to be.
Meanwhile, On Eighth Street
Contrast that with what's happening a few blocks over. Stone Hound Brewing Company, which built its name at a taproom on Bunker Hill Road in Acme, signed a lease with an option to purchase the former McLain building on East Eighth Street. Owner Brent Faber has said the upstairs street-level space will keep a vibe similar to the Acme taproom, with the same kind of pub food, while the lower level is aiming for an eighties-basement feel, lounge furniture, pinball, arcade games, and possibly pool tables.
As of last December, Faber was targeting a May or June opening. If that timeline held, the taproom has likely been pouring beer through most of this summer by the time you're reading this. Faber isn't from an Old Towne family and isn't waiting on anyone's blessing. He signed the lease, started the build-out, and aimed to have the doors open within about six months of announcing the project. The neighborhood's newest business is on pace to open faster than its longest-standing one has managed to reopen.
What's Actually Under Construction
If you live in Old Towne, the thing worth planning around isn't the storefronts, it's the intersection. The Traverse City Downtown Development Authority has said it plans to replace the deteriorating intersection at Seventh and Union sometime within the next two years, along with boardwalk construction tied to the ongoing FishPass project on the Boardman/Ottaway River. FishPass itself sits a couple blocks north of Old Towne, but DDA officials have described its completion, along with planned upgrades to the nearby Rotary Square property, as work that should create a stronger connection between downtown and the Old Towne district once it's finished.
None of that has a firm start date yet. But if you walk, bike, or drive through Seventh and Union regularly, expect that corner to become a construction zone at some point in the next two years, not this fall, but not far off either. It's worth keeping an eye on DDA meeting agendas if that intersection is part of your daily route.
The Street Party That Hasn't Happened Yet
Down at 237 Lake Avenue, Archie's Social House has become the kind of place with actual regulars, not just visitors passing through during Cherry Festival week. The restaurant grew out of a food truck that started rolling through northern Michigan in 2018 and built its menu around family recipes, named for a grandfather who didn't live to see either the truck or the restaurant open. Restaurant managers have talked about wanting to team up with neighboring businesses for a street closure someday, live music, shared menus, a genuine block party for the neighbors rather than a tourist draw. Nothing's been scheduled. But the fact that an established brunch spot is already thinking about throwing a neighborhood-wide party says something about where Old Towne's commercial energy is actually pointed: inward, toward the people who live here, rather than outward toward whoever's driving through for the weekend.
The Actual Pattern
Put it together and Old Towne isn't a neighborhood waiting on outside investment to decide its future. It's a neighborhood where a handful of families, the Deerings chief among them, have been making that call for decades, and where an outsider with a lease and a build-out crew can still move faster than institutional patience allows. The empty storefronts on the 400 block aren't evidence that nobody wants to be here. They're evidence that the people who could fill them are choosing not to, on their own schedule, in buildings their families have held for generations.
That's worth knowing if you live here, because it means the pace of change on your own block probably has less to do with regional real estate trends and more to do with a handful of decisions being made slowly, by people who aren't going anywhere.
If you're weighing what any of this means for a home you own or one you're thinking about in Old Towne, the team at The Mitten Group knows this district block by block, including which corners are actually about to move and which ones are likely to stay quiet for a while yet. Contact us.
