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Business View Magazine
Bay City, Michigan
Moving forward
Like many places in the state of Michigan, Bay City, a
community on the Saginaw River near the base of the
Saginaw Bay on Lake Huron, has seen better days. At
its height in the mid-twentieth century, it was home
to over 50,000 people, many of whom worked in its
shipbuilding facilities and automobile manufacturing
plants. Today, Bay City’s population is stabilizing at
around 35,000. “We have been, up to this point, los-
ing population, although the recent census shows the
loss to be very minimal,” says City Manager, Richard
M. Finn. “Our goal is to stop the loss of population and
start to increase it over a period of time.”
Finn understands that attracting new businesses to
replace the old ones that have gone is key to increas-
ing the population rate. And he believes that Bay City is
well on its way in implementing the strategies and ini-
tiatives designed to make it a place where businesses
want to set up shop. “We are coming out of the recent
Recession and things are vastly improving,” he states.
“I would characterize what’s going on here in Bay City
as almost a rebirth.”
Part of that rebirth is the total redevelopment of Bay
City’s downtown, just completed this past summer.
The over $2 million project included the resurfacing
of streets, new landscaping, and the replacement of
39 trees in the downtown business district. “That was
