VILLAGE OF NORTHPORT, MI -- If you go to the public beach in Northport over the next couple years you'll be seeing some improvements. The Village was just given a half million dollar grant from the Michigan Natural Resource Trust Fund to fix up the waterfront.
7&4's Kate Fox spoke to Village leaders to find out how they will use the money.
Northport's Village Coordniator, Greg King says they'll spend the money on making the waterfront better looking. He says they hope that will bring in more business, "Bring them in and once they're here...give them the best we can give them so we're pretty happy about it. You know if the moneys out there then why not go for it and that's what we've done."
This project is one of 117 recreation projects that the Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund Board recommened for grant this upcoming year.
In all they will hand out $102.1 million dollars, $500,000 dollars of that money will go to Northport's waterfront.
They will use that money to revamp the area around the marina. This includes building a new playgroung, restrooms, a promenade, parking lots and walkways.
King says "Pathways will help to get them around... people can enjoy the marina not just using the marina. We have a lot of people that use our facilities so once we get them here we want to be able to accommodate them."
The Village will have to contribute some money to the project.
King says, "We got to come up with $166,000 dollars which will come out of our marina fund and so that's pretty impressive--a proposed $660,000 dollar project. They're coughing up $500,000 dollars and that's what made this happen we couldn't afford to do it without them."
They should gt the money by early next year but construction won't start up until 2012.
There are several other projects that are being awarded money in the area.
For a list of projects CLICK HERE.
