The community of Bay City and Shaheen Development were honored with the Michigan Municipal League’s 2019 Community Excellence Award on Sept. 27 during the League’s annual Convention in Detroit. The peer-nominated Community Excellence Award (CEA), affectionately called “The Race for the Cup”, was started by the League in 2007 to recognize innovative solutions taking place in Michigan’s cities, villages and urban townships. It’s the highest and most prestigious award given to a community by the statewide League. The winning community receives a large trophy cup that they get to have on display for the next year. Last years winner was the City of Fraser. “It’s an honor that we were chosen to be a finalist, then chosen by our peers for this award,” said Dana Muscott, city manager of Bay City. “Uptown is a great partner with the City of Bay City. It’s a fantastic place to visit, so we encourage everyone to come to Bay City to see what we’ve accomplished on this formerly blighted property.” Uptown Bay City took a 43-acre riverfront site that had primarily been a manufacturing/industrial site for over 100 years and transformed it into a mixed-use, walkable, urban feel project.

This master-planned new urbanist-inspired development was designed with all the ingredients for success: world-class commercial office space, urban living options, retail, hospitality, and regional destination restaurants. It has brought many of the vital components of job creation and residential living back to the urban core of Bay City. “This is a great project for our whole region,” said Al Warr, Director of Development for Shaheen Development. “We have a wonderful working relationship with the city and all of the various companies, from small businesses to large corporations, that have chosen to call Uptown home. We appreciate their faith in us and the dream we had 10 years ago in Bay City.”

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