From cement plant to multi-million dollar homes: Bay Harbor celebrates 30 years

BAY HARBOR — Thirty years ago, a falling smokestack heralded the beginning of an enormous project to transform a five-mile stretch of land along Lake Michigan from a shuttered cement plant into a bustling lakeside community filled with multi-million dollar homes.

The Petoskey News-Review was on site on July 12, 1994 when the demolition of the former Penn-Dixie Cement Co. plant launched the Bay Harbor development in Emmet County.

In an article the next day, David V. Johnson, Bay Harbor developer, said “I’d say we’ve gone beyond standing on the edge of the world, we’ve kind of jumped off with both feet.”

Thirty years later, Johnson is pleased that leap of faith has paid off.

“Thirty years went by in a blink,” he said. “Sometimes they were long blinks, like economic crises or environmental crises or pandemics, but our goal was always continuous improvement.”

Johnson, who is also the chairman of the Bay Harbor Company, describes himself as “the one that blew up the cement plant.”

“I think that in the beginning, nobody believed we could actually do it,” he said. “And we knew that tearing the building down right up front, even though it was huge money being put up front, we had to do that so people believed, or nobody was ever going to believe it was real.”

Denny Brya, general manager and director of development and operations for the Bay Harbor Company, joined the project in its early development. Today, his office contains a large photo of the former cement plant.

“I’ve been here over 29 years, so just after the project commenced. Basically the lake was just flooded and then we started building the dock. There wasn’t any pavement down here or anything like that,” he said. “Most of the plant was gone. The silos that were in that picture there were still here. We were still doing demolition.”

Brya described the work as “very, very fast paced.”

“A lot of different moving parts at one time,” he said. “It was extremely busy with construction, partnerships, acquisitions, marketing, sales. A lot happened in a short period of time.”

The initial scope of the project was enormous. Johnson said they were approved for 3,800 units on 800 acres.

“I said my children’s children won’t finish this,” he said. “We reduced it to 800 and it was still overwhelming, the fact that it was five miles long.”

When the project began, lots were selling from $250,000 to $1 million. Twenty-two had been sold by the time demolition of the cement plant began.

“The look for Bay Harbor Lake was all single family homes, and then my brilliant idea, because I was required by the permit to move the south edge of the lake back five feet, so the rocks didn’t fall on swimmers,” Johnson said. “I moved it back 250 feet to create the boathouses, and then they sat there for two years and I couldn’t sell one of them. I thought I was so smart maybe I was stupid. I couldn’t sell for $300,000, and all of a sudden they were $1 million.”

Constructing the Village at Bay Harbor added a retail element and invited the public into the burgeoning development.

“When we went to build the retail, at that point we were viewed as a gated community for rich people,” Johnson said. “And I said that’s not the image we want. And so let’s put some retail down here and not only can our owners come to it but let’s make it for all the general public to have an ice cream cone and walk on the docks.”

Over the years, Bay Harbor has continued to add new attractions, businesses and homes. They’ve won awards from travel and golf magazines, the Bay Harbor Foundation has donated millions to nonprofits in the region and they’ve even set a Guinness World Record (Largest electric vehicle parade, 2009).

What tied it all together, Johnson said, was the addition of the Great Lakes Center for the Arts in 2018.

“To me, Bay Harbor wasn’t done until the creation of the Great Lakes Center for the Arts, which had been a dream of mine for 20 years,” Johnson said. “With the creation of the performing arts center, I am at peace.”

Thirty years later, some of the original homeowners are now welcoming their grandchildren and great-grandchildren into the Bay Harbor community.

“Some days I lose perspective. You kind of drive in and out and you don’t see the changes, but I’ll look at an old picture or I’ll look at that picture (of the cement plant). It makes you feel proud that you took a Brownfield and made it into something that’s sustainable and people come here to make memories,” Brya said. “Recently I met some people who didn’t even know it was a cement plant, or that it was quarry. That blows to my mind. They were visiting and they didn’t know what this was just 30 years ago.”

To celebrate the milestone, Bay Harbor is hosting a 30th Anniversary Celebration on Saturday, July 6.

From 12-11 p.m. there will be plenty of activities and fun to be found in the Village at Bay Harbor, including food trucks, lawn games, live music, dancing and more. At 10:30 p.m., a lighted drone show will take place over Little Traverse Bay.

“It’s been a rollercoaster,” Brya said. “It’s been a great ride. We’re still developing. We’re still always doing stuff, we’re still always trying to be creative and make it a better place.”

For a full schedule of events for the 30th Anniversary Celebration, visit bayharbor.com.

— Contact Jillian Fellows at [email protected].  

This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Bay Harbor celebrates 30th anniversary