Work begins on new sheriff boathouse

MACOMB COUNTY — For nearly 50 years, the Macomb County Sheriff’s Office Marine Sheriff Division has been served by a single boathouse at the eastern edge of Harrison Township. But on Tuesday, Aug. 30, county officials broke ground on a project to replace the aging facility with a brand-new headquarters for the Marine Division. 

Estimated to cost $8.4 million, the 14,000-square-foot facility is set to be completed by July 2023. With an 8,700-square-foot increase over the existing facility, the new boathouse will include administrative and dispatch offices, a boat garage with five adjustable wells, a maintenance garage with facilities for dive teams and a new generator and lighting protection system. 

“It is going to be the basics of what really needs to be put into the facility that the Marine Division needs,” Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel said. “What we looked at was their true needs. We did not go for anything that was excessive.”

According to Macomb County Sheriff Anthony Wickersham, a changing county, deputy force and Lake St. Clair are the primary drivers for the new facility.

“The growth in our boating community and Lake St. Clair events in the past 50 years has overwhelmed our current facility,” Wickersham said in a statement before the groundbreaking. 

“Rising water levels have also taken its toll on the building, grounds and docks. Throughout the years, we’ve added deputies, reserve officers and a dive team that share this now outdated facility.  Our fleet has expanded, and on several occasions, we have not had the dock space to utilize all of our resources. Our priority on Lake St. Clair is to keep the boating community safe by enforcing maritime law and educating the public on safety protocols. This new facility will allow us adequate space, technology and dockage to do our jobs more efficiently.”

The new boathouse will be able to operate with high water levels via a raised foundation.

The existing boathouse will come down sometime in early September. The Marine Sheriff Division plans to use trailers for offices and the existing docks for boats while the new facility is constructed. Plante Moran will manage the project while Rockford Construction is the general contractor hired to build the new boathouse.

Of all the changes to come with the new facility, Wickersham is most excited about being able to store the boats in a shelter.

“We’re hoping with the new facility that [the boat wells] will be a little wider,” Wickersham said at the groundbreaking. “We’re going to be able to put boats in.”

The Marine Sheriff Division began patrolling Lake St. Clair in 1956 when Sheriff Harley Ensign was authorized to purchase a $2,500 (about $27,000 today) speedboat to ticket reckless boaters. The original boathouse was based out of New Baltimore, and the Marine Sheriff Division began construction to the South River Road site in the 1970s and moved in by 1978. Construction on an observation tower occurred in 1985.

The Marine Sheriff Division consists of eight full-time deputies, four summer deputies and 76 volunteer Marine Safety Officers. Deputies patrol Lake St. Clair and its connecting waterways, and they are trained and equipped for open water rescue, maritime law enforcement, vessel fire suppression and homeland security efforts.