The money is really starting to roll into the Ypsilanti Freighthouse. The Friends of the Ypsilanti Freighthouse recently received a $500,000 check from the state to fund sufficient repairs to the building to allow it to reopen its doors.

That's on top of a $100,000 grant it recently received from the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation. And on top of the tens of thousands of dollars the friends group has raised for the cause locally. It all adds up to a second lease on life for the historic building in Depot Town.

"This will open our doors," says Bonnie Penet, co-chair of the Friends of the Ypsilanti Freighthouse. "Of course we need more but that funds the critical assessment report and allows us to do repairs so we can open the doors."

The 130-year-old Freighthouse closed in 2004 due to a couple of significant-but-not-insurmountable issues, such as a bowing west wall and deck filled with unsafe trip hazards. The friends group recently had the surrounding grounds regraded so water will be directed away from the building's base.

The 5,000-square-foot, red-brick structure was used as a freighthouse until right after World War II, when it was converted into a warehouse. In 1979 the city bought it and turned it into a community center. It made the state Register of Historic Places in 1997.

The friends group is currently waiting for architectural and engineering plans to be drawn up this summer. It hopes to start work by this fall and open in time for the first train from the planned Detroit-Ann Arbor commuter rail line. The friends group is lobbying the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments to use the building as Ypsilanti's station on the Detroit-Ann Arbor commuter rail line.

"If it's on our side of the tracks, we will have a platform on our side connected to the freighthouse," Penet says.

Source: Bonnie Penet, co-chair of the Friends of the Ypsilanti Freighthouse
Writer: Jon Zemke