Ben Garbacz/Daily Mining Gazette Porvoo Park was approved for an upgrade at Monday's Hancock DDA meeting. On Wednesday the trees were being removed from the park and were relocated to the playground outside the city's baseball field. The park will also receive a dock.

HANCOCK — Hancock’s Porvoo Park, on the Portage Canal, will get a design upgrade as the result of action taken by the city’s Downtown Development Authority this week. At its Monday meeting, the DDA also negotiation for property on Franklin Street and approved its 2025-26 budget.

The meeting opened with reports from the DDA’s Todd Gast. On Saturday the Keweenaw Market Association will have its first Farmers Market on Quincy Green from 9 a.m. to noon. Bridgefest will begin on Friday June 13 with Kids on the Green from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

The DDA then approved the Hancock Business Jumpstart Program in the amount of $3,000 for Griffin Cafe’s relocation from Skyline Commons to 208 Quincy Street, the former Nisu Bakery & Café. The DDA Facade Grant application for $3,400 for Griffin Cafe’s new sign has been tabled however.

Following issues related to Griffin Cafe came the approval of the Porvoo Park upgrade designs. The park will receive a dock with some trees relocated to the playground near the city’s baseball field. Parking will also be adjusted by moving current spaces further back on Navy Street and the former parking spaces used to expand the grassy area. The dock was ordered Tuesday and is expected to come in within a week. The DDA approved $50,000 to be contributed to the project.

The DDA also approved entering into negotiations with Mark Elmer for the property at 114 Franklin Street. The price approved can go up to $200,000 and DDA member Jonathon Nagel said the property will be a good strategic holding for the city. After the meeting Nagel explained it would be beneficial to the city if it could attract a developer to the property to develop the parcel.

“That parcel slopes quite drastically from the north on Franklin Street to the south, which functions as an alleyway though it is private property, and then do a couple layers of parking and several layers of multi family units above it,” Nagel said. “And the city could retain ownership of one of those levels of parking, so we can still have a whole bunch of downtown parking, but we could also activate that space to be more multi family.”

Nagel said this would probably not happen for many years, but immediate plans would provide parking.