Walk the east side of the Boardman Lake Loop on any September morning and the trail looks the way it has since 2022: pavement along the wooded shoreline, a boardwalk over the cove, runners logging miles before work. Cross to the west side, past the old brick building with the fenced parking lot near Cass Road, and the trail still runs exactly where it always has. What changed is who owns the building beside it, and that change closed this spring after three decades under a single owner.
That building is the former Northwestern Michigan College Boardman Lake Campus. For thirty years, from 1995 to 2025, it served as NMC's University Center, where more than 10,000 students earned degrees through four-year university partners. NMC had owned the property since 1989. This year it sold.
The sale moved fast once it started. NMC's Board of Trustees voted on December 15, 2025 to enter negotiations with the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa & Chippewa Indians. By January 2, 2026, the two parties had signed a letter of intent for a $27 million purchase. NMC's board finalized the sale unanimously on January 26, and the tribal council signed the purchase and sale agreement five days later. The Grand Traverse Band officially closed on the purchase that spring, ending NMC's ownership of a building the college had used since before the loop trail existed.
The Band has said it plans to convert the campus into a centralized governmental services center, supporting tribal programs and member services across its six-county service area. The agreement includes a commitment the Band has stated publicly: the property will not be used for gaming. NMC, meanwhile, is leasing back space for a year to relocate departments still working out of the building, including Extended Education, the Foundation, Human Resources, and its Office of Research, Planning & Effectiveness. The college's target is to fully vacate by December 31, 2026.
One tenant isn't going anywhere on that timeline. Greenspire School holds a lease inside the Boardman Lake Campus building that runs through 2030, with an option to renew through 2035. Whatever the building becomes under its new owner, Greenspire's classrooms stay put for at least four more years.
Every public statement about the sale, from NMC's own board resolution to the Band's press releases, includes the same line: public access to the Boardman Lake Loop Trail, and to the lake and river, stays intact. That commitment isn't incidental. The loop trail runs directly along the property line, and the building's western frontage has been part of the trail experience since the loop's final segment opened in July 2022. A change in ownership that quietly closed off that stretch would have reshaped the walk for anyone who uses it daily. Instead, the deal that closed this spring carried the same access language through every draft, from the December vote to the April closing.
NMC's sale proceeds aren't earmarked for the trail. They're going toward priorities already in the college's strategic plan: converting the Osterlin Building into a student success hub, building a new power plant, and expanding student housing that's currently at capacity. Combined, those priorities represent more than $100 million in planned investment, of which this sale covers only a portion. The trail's continuity was a condition of the deal, not a byproduct of it.
The Boardman Lake Campus isn't the only piece of infrastructure near the loop that changed hands or changed shape this year. Grand Traverse County's Civic Center Park, a mile or so south along the same trail system, spent much of 2026 mid-renovation. The county's own project update page tracked the work in real time: a bridge replaced after frost laws lifted in spring, a mile-long walking path fully repaved, new wayfinding signage installed, and a restroom building at the park's south end rebuilt, with completion targeted for late August.
The same update noted site work beginning in the park's northwest corner for a new pump track, the latest phase of a bicycle education project Norte has been developing at the Civic Center for several years. The county secured close to a million dollars in state Revitalization and Placemaking funding to help pay for it. This fall, Traverse Connect's events calendar included a ribbon-cutting celebration for the finished pump track, open and free for community use.
None of this touches the Boardman Lake Loop directly. But it's the same pattern as the campus sale: a piece of public land bordering the trail system went through a visible physical transition in 2026, and the county's own updates made clear the goal was to keep the park more usable when the work finished than when it started, not less.
The Traverse City Track Club's Loop the Lake race is the clearest annual measure of how the trail gets used, and this year's edition, held September 4 on Labor Day weekend, shows the same theme playing out in miniature. The race started and finished at Hull Park on the lake's north side, running the full Boardman Lake Loop Trail for its 4-mile and 8-mile options, with a two-person relay for teams splitting the distance.
What was different this year: Munson Healthcare came on as presenting sponsor, Playa Bowls set up at the finish line serving acai and coconut bowls to finishers, and every participant received a wicking running cap. The race also ran the same course it always has, just weeks after the City of Traverse City wrapped construction near Hull Park that had closed a trail access point through June 30 for utility work. By race day, the detours were gone and the full loop was open.
A quick list of what's actually different if you haven't walked the loop since spring:
Every one of these changes, the campus sale, the park rebuild, the race's new sponsor, involved something built or owned near the loop changing hands or changing shape. None of them changed the loop itself. The trail is still the same 4-mile paved circuit it became when the final segment opened in 2022, and every party involved in this year's changes, from NMC's board to the Grand Traverse Band to Grand Traverse County, has put public access language in writing. That's not a coincidence built into one deal. It's a pattern across three separate ones, in the same year, around the same four miles of pavement.
If you walk the west side of the loop this week, the fence around the old NMC building is still up, and by year's end the Band's own staff will likely be the ones working behind it. The trail in front of it hasn't moved an inch.
If you're weighing what a change like this means for property near the Boardman Lake corridor, or you're curious how public investment near a trail like this tends to affect the surrounding market, Molly Buttleman knows this stretch of Traverse City well enough to walk you through it.
Molly is Michigan native and has called the Grand Traverse and Leelanau County region home for more than 30 years. Understanding the demands of today's buyers and sellers has allowed her to be a top producing agent when it comes to Antrim, Grand Traverse, and Leelanau County real estate year after year. As a relationship building person, she enjoys developing loyal friends and customers. As a Real Estate Professional, she builds those same lasting relationships with both Buyers and Sellers. Service is Molly's top priority.
Molly is known for listening and problem-solving, often putting her own real-life buying, selling, and renovating experience to use for her clients. Her construction industry connections also give her clients an extra sense of trust, especially if they are looking to add value to a property with a remodel.
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