Bay Mills Indian Community wanted to bring a casino to Port Huron. Now it is razing the site
The old post office site — once part of the hope for a casino in Port Huron — will soon be razed along the city’s Main Street downtown.
The Bay Mills Indian Community first picked up the structure, 1300 Military St., in late 2010, along with a swath totaling more than 16 acres out east of Fourth Street toward the St. Clair River, fueling both a yearslong courtship to bring a casino to the city and a state court battle that ultimately stymied the effort.
Much more recently, blight citations and an updated environmental site analysis have been added to the mix. A demolition permit from the city was issued Nov. 16 and expires on Dec. 31.
What that means for the future of the property overall remains unclear.
Local officials, meanwhile, said they hope it’s a step toward finally seeing the site being redeveloped.
“It’s in the central business district, which has a large variety of types of (property) uses. It could be residential, commercial, mixed-use, so a whole host of things could fall within that,” said David Haynes, the city of Port Huron’s planning director. And because it represents such a large piece of the untapped waterfront, he added, “It creates a lot of opportunity for future development.”
“The building had continued to deteriorate. There was water penetration through the roof, going into the interior, so as time was going on, that building only continued to decline,” Haynes said. “So, obviously, they came to the conclusion that they were better served to have that property removed. It lessens their liability and increases their chance of attracting a developer if they have a clear property rather than a building that would basically need to be removed for future use.”
The notice for the demo was posted locally in October; as was a notice of intent to perform brownfield site work through the Bay Mills’ news arm and on Facebook.
No date of demo was listed on Bay Mills’ permit, and the post office structure itself — boarded up with a streetside perimeter fence installed — remained standing as of late last week.
In a statement Friday, Bay Mills highlighted its use of the greenspace property for community needs, including public events, car shows, fireworks, and law enforcement training, acknowledging the building itself has been subject to "continuus vandalism and damange."
"Earlier this year, the city of Port Huron issued a blight ticket. In response, Bay Mills decided to demo the property to protect the safety and welfare of the Port Huron citizens, and prevent further blight issues with the city," the tribal community said. "Due to asbestos in the building, demolition plans are taking longer than expected. The asbestos must be dealt with prior to demolition taking place. Once the building is demolished, the land will be graded.
"At this time, BMIC has no plans to develop the site. The tribe is open to selling the land to a developer."
How did all of this start?
Bay Mills’ post office and waterfront property purchase for $100,000 from Acheson Ventures came in 2010. But talk of a casino predated the deal by well over a decade.
Port Huron residents initially narrowly rejected the idea for a $60 million casino plan at the old Sears building from Bay Mills and Harrah’s Casino Hotels in an advisory vote in 1993. But the tides of any opposition began to turn after the casino opened across the river in Point Edward, Ontario, in 2000.
Local voters then supported a casino idea in 2001. Politics got in the way as lawmakers with local ties tried to usher through approval of a project in the years that followed.
After years of lacking success, Bay Mills bought the property at Desmond Landing in Port Huron, as well as other sites in Vanderbilt and just outside of Flint. The state later sued the tribal community in federal court after it opened in Vanderbilt, claiming the operation 100 miles south of its Upper Peninsula reservation violated the federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act and its gaming compact with the state.
Bay Mills had claimed its use of trust funds to pick up the property allowed it to run a casino there. The court battle went to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled 5-4 in 2014 the tribe’s sovereignty protected it against state lawsuits unless Congress changed its immunity.
It went back and remained in U.S. District Court, and by 2020, to settle competing legal claims, the Bay Mills Indian Community agreed not to pursue off-reservation casinos. In a statement at the time to the Tribal Business News, a spokesperson for the state attorney general’s office said the arrangement prohibited the tribe “from conducting gaming activities on the subject land for five years.”
Regardless of its legal outcomes, Bay Mills has aimed to take steps at the building it owns in Port Huron to “allow the property to be redeveloped,” according to environmental cleanup documents. In a brownfield analysis posted more recently by the community, environmental evaluations since the mid-1990s have cited various asbestos-containing materials and lead paint in the old post office.
This October, SA Torello also reportedly conducted a waste survey, confirming the presence of asbestos-containing and lead contaminants. Its project goal lists cleaning up and disposing of those materials, as well as capping the site, though nothing about what comes after.
What will happen to the site?
A dozen structural and property blight issues at 1300 Military St. have been listed to be in violation by the city of Port Huron’s building department since June.
Citations came following a citizen complaint about bricks falling off the building, several broken or boarded-up windows, exposed electrical, graffiti and more “extreme disrepair issues.”
The violations themselves also included exterior loose surfaces and holes, roof repairs, foundational maintenance, and open storage issues. None of them had reportedly been addressed upon reinspection in August and early October.
Bay Mills later notified the city of its intent to raze the property instead of completing work for an inspection.
Although the demolition posed new questions about the future of the old post office, local officials weren’t sure on what was to come after.
Port Huron City Manager James Freed said they “continue to shop around for developers with all of Desmond Landing,” adding that representatives of the property seemed “open to any type of development” the last time they touched base with the tribe within the last few years. Haynes said the tribe hadn’t communicated any next steps to his office, but he thought redevelopment was “the next logical step” as it “increases desirability” for the property.
Contact Jackie Smith at (810) 989-6270 or jssmith@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Port Huron Times Herald: Bay Mills Indian Community wanted to bring a casino to Port Huron. Now it is razing the site
