BY SCOTT SULLIVAN
EDITOR
A drive to save Douglas City Hall from the wrecking ball that has gathered more than 250 signatures could go before city council as soon as its Monday, June 2, meeting.
The city plans to sell its current hall, the 1875-built former Dutcher Lodge at 86 Center St., to raise funds to convert the ex-hospital complex at 415 Wiley Road into a new municipal center.
An online petition drive launched May 22 citizen A.J. Marineau calls for council to make demolition of the structure off limits as a condition of any sale.
“The entire Douglas community,” Marineau’s appeal reads, “stands to lose a vital part of its identity” should the old lodge be dislodged.
The structure, he says, “has long served as a civic and cultural hub — from its origins as a Masonic lodge to its decades as City Hall.
“Generations of residents, including my own family, have lived, gathered and governed with this building at the heart of town life,” says Marineau.
“As a third-generation community member and board member of the Saugatuck-Douglas History Center, I know firsthand how much this place matters — not just as architecture, but as memory, tradition and community.”
“We understand the City’s financial needs. But once sold, there is nothing preventing a developer from demolishing this historic structure,” says the petition.
“The Dutcher Lodge’s designation on the Michigan State Register of Historic Sites is an honor, not a protection. Due to the lack of a historic district in Douglas, this building could be razed, and with it, an irreplaceable chapter of our community’s story.
“This is not an anti-development petition — we’re simply asking for a common-sense safeguard: that the City make demolition off-limits as a condition of sale,” the petition says.
The old building has been saved before. The then Douglas Historic Preservation Committee raised more than $150,000 between 1991 and 2005 to rehabilitate the ex-Dutcher Lodge and “return it to a gathering place and cultural center” for the community.
The SDHC itself occupies the 1866-built Douglas Union School, renovated through member donations, a block west at 130 Center St. What is called the Old School House appears on the National Register of Historic Places too.
The SDHC, reads Marineau’s appeal, “would love to preserve the building and turn it into a cultural and community center — but absent major donations, it most likely cannot.
“So we the signers of this petition are asking the City to do the next best thing: protect the structure, no matter who ends up owning it.”
Want to learn more and/or sign the petition? Go to https://www.change.org/p/save-dutcher-lodge?
