Salty Summer Sounds: Good Music and A Great Way to Imagine What Downtown Saline Could Offer

The Saline Fiddlers Philharmonic always put on a good show in Downtown Saline.

Last Thursday, at the Salty Summer Sounds concert starring the Fiddlers helped showcase what downtown Saline might be one day.

Isaac Roughton plays for the Fiddlers.

The parking lot that hosted the Salty Summer Sounds concert has hosted festivals and events for years. Oktoberfest and Summerfest both host their major activities in the parking lot.  It's also home to the outdoor farmers market for half of the Saturday mornings of the year.  Now it's home to the Salty Summer Sounds concert, Saline Main Street's music series. The concerts have struggled to regain their footing since Fire Chief Sperle informed the city that closing down South Ann Arbor Street for concerts created fire code violations. When the concerts were there, patios at Mac's, Brecon Grille and Salt Springs Brewery were often packed.

Main Street moved the concerts to North Ann Arbor Street, but the concert series just didn't have the same vibe.

Last Thursday's Fiddlers concert attracted a big crowd. Even if the crowd wasn't surrounded on three sides by patios of happy patrons of Saline's restaurants, some of that old South Ann Arbor Street vibe was there.  With the Fiddlers strumming and singing Buffalo Gals and lifting spirits, it's hard not to be optimistic about some of the plans for downtown Saline. Specifically, the social district and the downtown public space.

Without rehashing all the details, Main Street was unable to convince Saline City Council to extend the social district North of Michigan. But according to Mary Dettling, Main Street Director, all four alcohol-serving restaurants (including the soon-to-open DropTop Pizza) on the southside are going to participate.  The social district will allow people to buy alcoholic beverages at the participating establishments and consume the beverages throughout the district. Now, the district is mostly sidewalks on Michigan and South Ann Arbor Street. But it expands to that parking lot (can we please come up with memorable names for the lots?) on Thursday nights and Saturday mornings, when the lot hosts the concerts and farmers market

So you could walk over to Mac's, buy a drink and come back and watch the concert while you sip your beer.

According to Dettling, the state has not yet granted approval. But you can probably count on the district being up and running by next year's concert series.

The other thing that would enhance the music series is the creation of a public gathering space. For one, part of the parking lot would be converted to green space, with swinging benches and plantings doubling as seating. Aesthetically it would be an improvement on the harsh, oil-stained blacktop, whether it was for the Fiddlers or whoever is playing at Oktoberfest or Summerfest. It would make shopping at the Farmers Market a little more pleasant. Or, on a typical weekday, it might be a great place to sit outside and enjoy ice cream from Carrigan Cafe, a soda from Eleanors, or a drink and lunch from a downtown Saline establishment.

The proposal also includes vague plans for more programming, whether it's music, art, or some other kind of gathering. 

It's hard to imagine any other city-owned land where this could happen in downtown Saline.  

So what's stopping it? Well, there's a real parking issue. Several businesses don't want to lose that convenient parking. And honestly, I use that lot more than any other when I drive downtown, so I vouch for its convenience.

Saline City Council has a difficult decision. And that's not just a big Bowl of Bula.

Find more photos of the concert at our Smugmug site.

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