Cassopolis is a community of dreamers and doers who know what kind of future they are looking for and are actively making big things happen.

Goals of this Placemaking Action Plan:

As the community is implementing Imagine Cass plans and MEC is building out the SMART park, what will attract tourism, new residents and build up a local workforce? Typically it comes down to – where to live and what is there to do? 

This action plan lays out key high impact opportunities and catalytic concepts to consider as the Village continues to develop plans for growth and improvements. This is meant to complement the existing Imagine Cass plan and continue with the momentum gained through that process. The proposed concepts focus on unique assets Cassopolis can leverage to build community, a sense self, and to differentiate itself from every other rural community across the country.

The overall goals of the creative placemaking process are:

• Economic and Social Development
• Increase population and tourism
• Improve overall quality of life

Cassopolis is a community of dreamers and doers who know what kind of future they are looking for and are actively making big things happen. 

In 2018, a group of Michigan State University School of Planning students kicked off a process called the Imagine Cass by completing the Broadway Corridor Vision (PDF plan HERE). The focus of this plan was a set of proposed concepts to revitalize the downtown corridor. The work of Imagine Cass then led to an extensive planning process creating the long-range vision for the Village resulting in the 2019 Master Plan (PDF plan HERE).

The Master plan was produced through a collaborative community lead process with key stakeholders from across the community. In the time since the Village has progressively moved forward implementing the plan including a $7 million approval to implement the Broadway Corridor Vision. The funding has been allocated with four goals; 

• Improve pedestrian and bicycle access along Broadway & State Streets 
• Establish a new public park on Stone Lake’s Northeast shore to anchor the south end of downtown with a public beach, event space, bathrooms, fishing pier, and a transient boat dock. 
• Combine Village administrative services (manager, clerk, polices, council/commission with the Dept. Of Public Works (DPW) to form a Village Municipal complex. 
• Funding will also include proceeding with the N. O’Keefe reconstruction project from Graham Street to N. Village Limits (Practically funded with an RTF grant of $380,379)

MEC (Midwest Energy Communications) a rural electrical co-op headquartered in Cassopolis and in the process of building out an incredible SMART Park (Business Park). A project summary from April 2019 can be found here.

As a part of the planning and development process for the SMART Park, MEC hired Alchemy Community Transformations, a McClure team, to work in partnership with the Village of Cassopolis on identifying and developing action plans for the most catalytic opportunities, bringing to life the previous work of Imagine Cass.