The Rebirth of Mill Creek

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The creation of Mill Creek Park goes hand in hand with the growth on the edges of the village: during ten years of rapid growth, the village's general fund budget has more than doubled, from $1.6 to $3.3 million. Dexter invested some of that money in the four-acre project just south of the new Main Street Bridge.

Allison Bishop, the village's community development manager, recounts the project's twenty-year gestation. "In the early nineties, there was talk about removing the dam [below the old bridge], and by the mid-nineties, it was decided to remove [it]. But there wasn't any money to do it at the time, so there wasn't any push until the Main Street Bridge got too dilapidated to use. And as part of replacing it, the city worked with the county road commission to remove the dam as well.

"The dam came out in 2008," continues Bishop, who started with the village in 2001. "We applied for grant funding from the Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund and the Department of Natural Resources Waterways Infrastructure project in April 2009. We were awarded in December 2009 and signed contracts in June 2011. We broke ground in August 2011, and we're scheduled to complete work in fall of 2012, possibly sooner."