Plans for Thunder Bay River Center
Plans to construct the Thunder Bay River Center in Alpena are starting to come together, and they got a huge boost from a grant. A chair member of the river center board, Judy Kalmanek, stopped by to talk about the project.
Originally a project of the Alpena Wildlife Sanctuary, it’s being broken up into two phases because it is such a large project. Phase one includes putting in bathrooms outside of the main building, near the pavilion, which is also being newly built in this initial phase. The River Center’s goal is to conserve freshwater, as 20% of the world’s freshwater is located in the great lakes.
“We sit on one of the most precious commodities on Earth,” said Kalmanek. “Consequently, it is our responsibility to take care of that water, not only for ourselves, but for the millions of people who depend upon it.”
The main building will go on the hillside near Duck Park, and Kalmanek is looking forward to what it’s going to bring to the area.
“We hope that then people who visit, not just people who live here, but people will be able to take that back to their own communities, and they will become stewards of the water in their communities, just like we hope everybody here becomes stewards in our community,” she said.
Phase one of the project is expected to start at the end of 2023, or early 2024.
