DETROIT – There’s a whole lot of uncertainty surrounding the future of the Belle Isle Boat Club. The Department of Natural Resources is exploring every possible option on how to proceed.
Since 1902, the Belle Isle Boat Club -- formerly known as the Detroit Boat Club -- has been a major part of the community. Unfortunately, it’s been sitting inoperable for over a year now.
“It’s in a great location. The building has incredible potential. It’s great incredible history for the city of Detroit,” said Detroiter Greg Bowman.
“I have strong emotions about it not being used. It’s been a big part of my life,” said Allan Baur.
“I’m sure there would be limits to the use of it,” said Bowman.
With that said, the DNR is exploring what to do with the building. Urban District Supervisor Tom Bissett says although no decisions have been made, the first option is demolition. But the second option could be renovating the building for a pretty steep price.
“We talk about complete restoration, but we have to present the financial situation as it is and what that means for each one,” Bissett explained.
Renovating would be around $54 million or more. The last option would be going neither route and persevering the place until an easier decision can be made down the line.
“We’ve also talked about Moth-Balling the building so that no further degradation occurs,” Bissett added.
“That would probably be a good thing until somebody can come up with $54M to rehab it and I think it would be a great draw” Bowman insisted.
“It would cost so much money to refurbish and everything else. They could probably invest that money into another location here on the island,” Allan insisted.
The DNR is taking input from the public on which way they should ultimately go ahead of a meeting Thursday morning.
The virtual meeting can be found here.
The public can submit comments.