The Review Magazine Spring 2025

CONNECTING HOUGHTON

Houghton worked with a landscape architect to create a space designed for people, not just cars, including engineered rain gardens and a universal access ramp to allow pedestrians of all abilities to move between Main Street and the waterfront. Beautification Committee volunteers added plants from the local nursery. DPW took advantage of a mild winter to build amenities along the waterfront, including wooden porch swings, benches, and a “lunch counter” with bar stools overlooking the water. Faced with the problem of pizza boxes clogging up garbage cans, Houghton once again got creative. “I looked all over Hell’s half acre, every park supply place and Google: Does anybody make something for jamming pizza boxes into? Nope,” said Waara. “Okay! Public Works, here’s a sketch. Make something like this. So now we have receptacles on the waterfront, basically a mailbox for your pizza box, that doesn’t jam up the garbage cans. Because one pizza box at 4 on Friday afternoon means that garbage can is pretty much out of service till Saturday morning, when the guys come out to empty them.” Bolstered by a new Social District, Houghton’s waterfront now has a buzzing events calendar: a growing concert series, Fall Fest, the New Year’s Eve Chook Drop, and Jibba Jabba, a snowboarding competition sponsored by Red Bull and featuring over 30 professional snowboarders (including, this year, eight female snowboarders).

“We were having placemaking meetings, just kind of a mishmash of community members that would get together to brainstorm stuff,” said Zawada. “Jibba Jabba was something we did a decade or more ago. It was really popular but fell by the wayside. People would say, ‘You guys should bring that back somehow.’ And at the placemaking meeting we said, ‘let’s do it.’” The City intentionally left some areas of the waterfront empty as an opportunity for further development. “We’re gonna leave this space, see how it feels when it’s all done. And then we’ll figure out what to do with it,” said Waara. “Once you can stand there and people walk there, you get ideas.” “It’s like when you have a living room,” added Zawada. “You don’t want to jam your living room full of furniture. You leave it open and spacious, and you can do all sorts of really fun stuff.” In 2025, Houghton is looking to improve accessibility for boaters and kayakers. The City is also focusing on supporting existing infrastructure, ensuring that the revitalized waterfront stays in great shape for the next half-century. “It’s a beautiful place,” said Waara. “You got sunrises, you got sunsets, you got date nights, you got jogging and walking, kids and dogs and people learning how to ride bikes. That was always the intent—we wanted to turn back toward the water as a public resource, instead of just a place to load and unload coal and vegetables.”

For more information, visit: cea.mml.org

Houghton’s Waterfront Walk—built for people of all mobilities to move between downtown and waterfront.

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