Flood Damage Closes Red Drive at Grand Traverse Commons Indefinitely

Flood damage severed Red Drive at the Grand Traverse Commons, leaving The Greenspire School's 98 middle and high schoolers without their normal drop-off route and cutting parking access to Historic Barns Park, the Commons Natural Area, and Northwest Education Services with no reopening date in sight.

The closure affects the road's unpaved stretch, where flooding, believed to have been triggered by a broken culvert or a failing old water main, carved through ground that was never built to withstand it. Red Drive was originally a state hospital lane, constructed in wetlands with unstable soil and never brought up to full street standards. Township Manager Chris Barsheff has cited the road's wetlands proximity as a long-standing source of maintenance problems.

For Greenspire families, the disruption hits drop-off directly. The public charter school, authorized by Grand Valley State University and located at 1026 Red Drive, serves approximately 98 students in grades 6 through 12. No alternate access route to the school's entrance has been publicly announced.

The question of who pays for repairs has no clean answer. Under Michigan law, road maintenance is the responsibility of road commissions, not townships. But the Grand Traverse County Road Commission has declined to assume ownership of Red Drive in its current condition, Township Supervisor Joe McManus confirmed. That leaves the Grand Traverse Commons Recreational Authority holding the bill by default. Executive Director Matt Cowall acknowledged the arrangement is unsustainable: "As the Commons grows up, this is one of those pinch points we have to collectively decide how to deal with."

The road has flooded before. In May 2020, water from adjacent woodlands funneled down Red Drive and into campus parking lots, depositing inches of muck and debris. Developer Raymond Minervini Jr. of The Minervini Group called that event "catastrophic."

The road's pressures are only growing. Garfield Township plans to break ground soon on a universally accessible trail loop at the Commons Natural Area, connecting to Red Drive parking via the North Long Lake Road trailhead. Northwest Education Services is also evaluating a campus expansion that Barsheff warned could "create a lot of traffic" on a road already beyond its design limits.

No repair timeline or cost estimate has been released.