EMPIRE -- More than $2.2 million in federal stimulus money is headed for improvements at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.
Just over $2 million will fund the rehabilitation of the historic village of Glen Haven, located within the park near Glen Arbor.
The park also will receive $147,000 to improve trails, and $99,000 to control baby's breath, an invasive plant that can hinder the habitat of the piping plover, a small endangered shorebird.
"The rehabilitation work done at Glen Haven is something that we've been working on for quite a while and hoping to get the funding," said Kerry Kelly, chairman of Friends of the Sleeping Bear Dunes. "It'll really allow us to bring the history of the area alive."
The park already has rehabilitated a general store and blacksmith shop in the village, but hopes to preserve and reuse other structures such as the Sleeping Bear Inn, said Tom Ulrich, deputy park superintendent.
"Another thing that really needs to be done at Glen Haven ... is to really improve visitor access to the village," Ulrich said. "The parking is just a big dust bowl, or in spring, a mud bowl."
A new, paved parking lot would be located outside the historic landscape. Trails and boardwalks would connect visitors to the beach and the village.
Deteriorating hiking trails will get a $147,000 boost with new boardwalks, stairs and other improvements.
Another project will help control baby's breath. The plant has spread into some critical piping plover habitat.
"The Great Lakes piping plover depend on the habitat at Sleeping Bear Dunes," Ulrich said.
Work on the projects should begin as soon as next month, Ulrich said.
"That's the whole idea behind the recovery act, is to hire people instantly," he said. "We were just waiting to hear what kind of funding we'd receive. Now we'll be able to proceed with hiring."
The work will require a variety of skilled and unskilled laborers, including carpenters for rehabilitation work and people to help remove baby's breath.
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