MML Review Magazine Winter 2026

“I went through our GIS data, took that information, and we looked at every single [Marquette County] township to see what they owned, if they own any municipally owned land," says Adan. At any given time, the Marquette County Land Bank holds between 20 and 25 properties. “The land bank is always going to be in the business of performing blight elimination and demolition,” says Adan. “That's part of the ‘1.0.’ . . . Moving forward to what we call ‘2.0’ in land banking, now that we have a lot of sites that are vacant or demolished, the next natural step is to look at redevelopment.” The Marquette County Land Bank is now identifying sites for workforce housing (between 60 and 120 percent median income). The goal of all this is to create a smoother, more predictable pipeline for projects. Adan’s day-to-day work includes coordinating directly with developers and local governments to get sites ready for development. He provides technical assistance and due diligence that many developers do not have the capacity to perform themselves. He also connects developers to things like MI Neighborhood and MSHDA’s Missing Middle programs. Housing Now’s Emerging Developer Program is a big part of this. “We've grown that list from five or six people last year in February to about—I think I counted 56 people on the list now,” says Adan. The conversations are participant driven, encouraging developers to collaborate among themselves. Adan sees it as a “safe space” for people who understand the challenges of development in the U.P. This housing experiment has earned its plaudits. Adan was recently named Emerging Leader for the National Land Bank Association, and Housing Now received the state Home Builders Association’s first ever Coalition of the Year award. In concrete terms, the experiment is already paying off. After only two or three Land Bank developments in previous years, “we're [currently] building 22 units,” says Adan. He estimates that the initiative has assisted in the development of 136 properties through “conversations, discussions, meetings, town halls, public hearings, anything that we can throw at it.” On top of that, 546 units are being rehabbed. “That may not seem like a big number,” says Adan. “But for us, that's huge.”

Moving forward, Adan hopes for scalability. “With the knowledge that we've gained the last two years on how to do this, I think now we're looking for, how do we replicate this county wide, U.P. wide,” he says. "Make our efforts go an extra mile—having not just a four- or five-unit development but actually like a 20-to-30-to-50-unit development project that is really going to make an impact for that community.” “We're trying to figure out how to keep this train going.” Antonio Adan is happy to connect with League members who want to learn more about his work and collaboration. He can be reached at aadan@mqtco.org. Christopher Germain is happy to connect with League members and can be reached at 906-202-3710 and cgermain@marquette.org. Emily Pinsuwan is a content writer for the League. You may contact Emily at 734-669-6320 or epinsuwan@mml.org.

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| Winter 2026