EAST LANSING, Mich. — For a project that could be dubbed “Extreme Makeover: Small Town Edition,” a group of students with Michigan State University’s Small Town Design Initiative is wrapping up its largest project to date in which it spent a year working with Manistee County residents to design concepts that reinvigorate that west Michigan region.

Final design concepts will be unveiled at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, June 14, in the historic Ramsdell Theatre at 101 Maple St. in Manistee. The free, two-hour public event will have an intermission during which dessert will be served. More than 500 before-and-after images will include new concepts for streetscapes, building facades, community entrances, parks and waterfront development.

The Small Town Design Initiative is a "go-to" resource for small Michigan communities looking for design assistance in community development and land use to address environmental challenges and to improve the quality of life in small towns.

“The residents of Manistee County are very entrepreneurial,” said Warren Rauhe, associate professor and director of the Small Town Design Initiative. “Our students are lucky to have opportunities to go into these communities and be involved with something that’s really happening. During their trips to meet with residents, the students even got to stay in the homes of MSU alums who live in the area.”

Tim Ervin, president of the Manistee County Community Foundation, approached MSU for help after his involvement last year in a similar project for Traverse City in which MSU students produced designs that revamped a two-mile stretch of the West Bay waterfront.Manistee had just completed a county-wide visioning process to revitalize the area, and it needed help taking those ideas to the next level.

Last June, students initiated work with Manistee County residents to put their words into pictures. After a series of meetings with residents and tours of the community, students began their design concepts while taking into account accessibility challenges and environmental factors. In November, they shared their preliminary designs with about 100 people in Manistee via a live interactive Web presentation where they received feedback from the residents.

After the presentation, all digital materials, along with 12 individual final reports, will be handed over to the community. MSU doesn’t implement the designs, so it’s up to the community to take action.

The Manistee County Community Foundation already has grant funds set aside for implementing a portion of the project and is seeking additional funding.

“MSU should feel proud of what they did for this county,” said Ervin. “We’ll never be able to measure the full impact of this project, but it will be a substantial one for Manistee County for years to come.”

Driven by student work and ideas, the Small Town Design Initiative operates 365 days a year and has worked with more than 50 communities in its seven years. Projects primarily focus on the imaging and visioning of physical environmental design. This includes downtown streetscapes, parks, industrial/commercial development, beautification, land use, ecosystem management and residential development.

For more information on the Small Town Design Initiative, see www.spdc.msu.edu/la/smalltowns/index.html.

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