Traverse City weighs shared use of Carnegie building by arts center, library

Traverse City’s most familiar historic downtown building could become both an arts center and a library hub, turning a long-running tenant fight into a test of how the city wants to use a public asset at 322 Sixth Street.

On April 21, the Traverse City Commission voted 5-2 to explore whether Crooked Tree Arts Center and the Traverse Area District Library could share the Carnegie Building, after what local reporting described as the largest public turnout commissioners had seen in at least eight years. City Manager Benjamin Marentette was directed to speak with both organizations and return with a recommendation by the May 18 commission meeting, with Crooked Tree’s current lease set to expire in October 2026.

The building carries unusual weight in Traverse City. Dedicated on March 10, 1905, it opened as the city’s library and served as Traverse Area District Library’s main library for almost a century before TADL moved to Woodmere Avenue in 1999. Crooked Tree says it opened its Traverse City campus there on March 2, 2015, and has used the space for galleries, classroom space and arts programming ever since.

City documents put the stakes in plain numbers. The Carnegie Building, owned by the City of Traverse City and located at 322 Sixth Street, is about 11,500 square feet. Annual utility costs are estimated at roughly $29,000, and a city facility assessment identified about $583,000 in restoration needs, including historic window replacement and HVAC upgrades.

TADL’s proposal would bring the library back in a new form, with a community center, city museum and special collections library tied to the city’s Con Foster collection. That collection includes more than 11,000 historical artifacts and has reportedly been in storage for more than a decade, far from public view. Supporters of that plan have framed it as a chance to reunite local history materials and make them more accessible in a downtown location.

Crooked Tree has raised concerns about co-location and has asked commissioners to continue the request-for-proposals process as designed. The city had already opened that process earlier this year, with proposals due Feb. 4, and Crooked Tree and TADL were the only respondents. A December 2025 decision favoring nonprofit proposals with arts, culture or environmental missions helped set up the current showdown, but the April 21 vote signaled that commissioners are still looking for a way to avoid a winner-take-all outcome.

If the shared-use plan advances, the Carnegie Building would shift from a single-tenant arts space into a hybrid venue for exhibitions, archives, public gathering and library programming, with consequences that reach beyond one downtown property and into the city’s broader debate over access, preservation and civic use.