Garrett Neese/Daily Mining Gazette Houghton Parking Deck Subcommittee members Eric Waara, Tom Merz, Dan Liebau and Mike Needham talk during Monday’s meeting. The subcommittee backed the removal of the parking deck after considering a range of options.

HOUGHTON — After weighing the options for the big parking deck on Lakeshore Drive, Houghton’s parking deck subcommittee made a decision Monday: it should go.

The subcommittee voted 4-0 Monday to recommend to the Planning Commission that it recommend to the City Council to start the process of removing the deck, while at the same time starting the planning process for what will replace it.

The subcommittee had considered multiple options, which included leaving the deck up or only taking down a portion of it.

But the deck’s advanced age — more than 40 years — and deteriorating condition made removing it the obvious choice, subcommittee members said.

“The idea of continually putting money into that deck does not make sense,” Tom Merz, chair of the subcommittee and the Planning Commission, said after the meeting. “We should look to the future and what could be done to improve the situation. Today, if that deck were not there, no one would suggest we put that deck there. We got 40 years out of it, it’s time to move on.”

The subcommittee drew up a list of 12 potential criteria, divided into accessibility, aesthetics, opportunities, impacts on the city and community, and parking availability.

“If you go back and look at all the minutes of all the meetings over the years, a lot of the things people asked us to consider are lumped into these categories,” Merz said. “They’re the issues that have to be confronted by the Planning Commission, and ultimately the City Council.”

The city created the subcommittee after The Veridea Group from Marquette pulled out after a year-and-a-half. Other suggestions from residents during that time ranged from green space to an RV park, Merz said.

Since the last meeting, five people had come up to him unprompted to say the deck needed to be removed, Merz said.

One member of the public spoke at the meeting, backing the removal of the deck.

Derek Bradway uses the deck frequently. But removing the deck is “self-evidently” the right option, he said.

“What is life after the deck?” he said. “Let’s figure that out. But until we get past this spot right here, we’re never going to get to the next round.”

The Planning Commission will take up the recommendation at its next meeting on July 27.

It’s too early to say what the process of finding a replacement will look like, Merz said.

“Let’s really have you do more than just theorize, let’s start working on the options — funding, cooperation agreements, whatever it is, and see where that leads us,” said subcommittee member Mike Needham. “See if it leads us down a path that’s not different from the last one that we tried.”

Needham drew a parallel to the recent collapse of a condominium in Miami from salt-water erosion.

“We’re going to be better than that,” he said. “We have to be better than that.”