Downtown Traverse City

Downtown Traverse City is the culture, education and business capital of Northwest Michigan and is home to Northern Michigan’s most diverse cuisine and best shopping. Centered on Front Street, the downtown is a walkable and compact place right next to the stunning Grand Traverse Bay and connected to many of the quintessential northern Michigan natural wonders.

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Front Street’s evocative brick sidewalks and 19th-century Victorian storefronts create a wonderful pedestrian setting because of careful attention to detail, materiality, and scale.  The storefronts and adjacent urbanism stimulate the five senses and engage customers as they stroll down the sidewalks, which helps to invite them into the stores to shop.  This is no accident, Traverse City has been very purposeful in the storytelling of this place, and it continues to be a destination for both locals and visitors.

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Like Front Street, many of Michigan's small towns and large cities have main streets, or districts, or entire downtowns that benefit from the storytelling of place that really starts with successful storefront design.  You can learn more about storefront design in this article from CNU's Public Square.