Douglas gets top award for downtown work

Felicia Fairchild, center, executive director of the Saugatuck-Douglas Convention and Visitors Bureau, presents the City of Douglas with the President’s Plaque. At left is Mayor Jim Wiley and at right is Ryan Kilpatrick, director of community development for Douglas.

Felicia Fairchild, executive director of the Saugatuck-Douglas Convention and Visitors Bureau, presented the City of Douglas with the President’s Plaque, the highest honor in the statewide Keep Michigan Beautiful competition on Monday, Nov. 5.

Fairchild nominated the city for its renovated downtown. The Center Street project done in 2006 included new sewer and water infrastructure as well as landscaped bump-outs, street trees, decorative lighting, on-street parking and a reconstructed roadway.

The improvements were designed to enhance the town’s atmosphere with streetside gardens with benches, sculpture and the capability to filter stormwater runoff from impervious surfaces