The MichiganConstellation
A rural agritourism and economic development corridor. Twenty-four small towns across Michigan's western lower peninsula hold the orchards, harbors, and main streets travelers drive out to find, with no shared name or marked route between them. The Constellation supplies both.
From Fennville's cider houses to Fishtown in Leland.
From Sparta's apple orchards to the flower farms at Pierport, the agriculture is already here. What has never existed is a named route connecting these towns into one destination.
Modeled loosely on Route 66 and California's wine country, and rooted in Michigan's own agricultural vernacular, the Constellation links small towns across western Michigan along the main roads that already run between them: M-22 up the coast, M-37 through the orchards, M-89 to the lakeshore. Like the constellations themselves, it branches- clusters of towns joined where the roads join, each a different shape, all under the same Michigan sky.
Each town is a node. The roads between them are the product. The destination is Michigan itself.
EDA Readiness funding covers the groundwork that makes the build possible: economic recovery strategy, predevelopment feasibility, corridor identity and wayfinding planning, and the organizational capacity to bring municipal partners to the table. That work qualifies the corridor for the implementation grant that follows.
The constellation, joined and branching.
One connected network with several constellations branching off it, linked by the real roads between the towns. Gold stars are towns. Blue diamonds are BLOX stops on the long stretches, where modular retail gives makers and food producers between the towns a place to reach travelers. Tap any to read it.
The pieces are already on the ground.
Each piece below opens. Click any block to see how it works and what it looks like on the ground.
The name points to the cultural layer underneath it. The corridor's star traditions come from the documented Ojibwe Giizhig Anung Masinaaigan, the Ojibwe Sky Star Map recorded by Anishinaabe astronomer Michael Wassegijig Price, a living system that tied the stars to planting, harvest, fishing, and travel on this land. Nothing here is invented. The name we use, the platform, the attribution, and a real share of the revenue are all part of that conversation, and the shape of the partnership is theirs to set when it begins.
What Rhize builds is the layer the towns cannot assemble alone: a corridor identity and naming system, physical wayfinding from the highway to the main street, a market and traffic analysis that quantifies the spending already on the road, and the development capacity to turn it into a fundable plan. The Michigan Constellation Corridor Overlay District standardizes signage, agritourism uses, and BLOX permitting across the jurisdictions, so one legible route emerges from two dozen separate town governments.
A BLOX unit is a converted shipping container, quick to permit and quick to place, that costs a fraction of permanent construction and can be moved if traffic shifts. That math fits the real revenue of rural retail, strong in season and quiet in winter. A cluster of them on an empty stretch becomes a farm stand, a coffee window, a tasting room, and a landmark that tells drivers they are on a route.
The Readiness work quantifies the shortage town by town and hands each municipality the documentation to act on. The aim is growth that houses the people who staff the orchards, restaurants, and shops, in the same towns where the jobs are.
LaFontsee Galleries and Framing curates rotating shows of local and Indigenous artists into the BLOX microgalleries, so the work changes as travelers move up the corridor and the route becomes a cultural circuit as much as an agricultural one. Sales flow back to the artists.
The Good Stake develops the EDA Readiness application and holds the relationships with the regional EDA office; Rhize controls the corridor planning and the place identity; Flywheel convenes the municipalities and leads housing readiness; BLOX supplies the commercial infrastructure; LaFontsee Galleries and Framing curates the microgalleries; and the nations are invited as cultural partners on their own terms. Each piece is already in place, which is what makes the application credible.
The Economic Return.
Corridor tourism spreads spending across distance. A rural region with a brand and coherent governance captures spending its towns could never draw alone, and five corridors have the public numbers to prove it.
The closest live analogue is the Pennsylvania Wilds, a thirteen-county region that walked the exact path this corridor proposes: a distressed rural area made legible, given a voluntary design standard that counties wrote into their own zoning, and handed to a nonprofit that holds the brand and serves the businesses. It reversed a real decline to get there, and every county in the region has grown visitor spending, tourism tax revenue, and tourism employment every year since tracking began in 2009.
The mechanism under all five is identical: the corridor moves the traveler, and the town captures the dollar. The spending lands in a consistent order, lodging first, then food, then fuel, then retail, which is the exact profile the node towns and BLOX stops are built to serve. The Readiness grant is the first step on a path two states have already walked.
EDA Readiness Path: what it funds.
Where this goes from here.
Rhize and Flywheel identify two to three initial municipal partners, one to two towns per region, and convene with BLOX to confirm timing and capacity.
The Good Stake schedules a call with the EDA regional representative for pre-application guidance.
A joint call with all partners aligns on application framing and municipal letters of interest.
The corridor identity concept and a preliminary BLOX site map are developed as part of the application narrative.
Housing needs documentation is compiled for each participating town.
We are selecting the first municipal partners.
Two to three initial municipalities, one to two per region, will be selected with Flywheel to anchor the first phase of EDA Readiness work. That coalition lends its names to the application and helps convene the corridor.
To be clear about the role: the municipal partners are the public face of the grant and the coalition. The planning is delivered by Rhize. The partners get a federally funded regional strategy, built around them.
If your town belongs on this map, this is the place to start.