The Old Dodge Dealership on Third Street Is About to Become Rogers City's Indoor Gathering Place

In 1930, the Rogers City directory carried an ad for Anthony Przybyla's A-P Super Service Station. It offered Dodge sales and service, fuel, oils, batteries, and Goodrich tires. Almost a century later, the name is still tied to the long, low building at 338 N. Third Street. That building has been empty since the dealership closed for good in 2018.

That's about to change. Rogers City Main Street-DDA is taking construction proposals to renovate the 4,000-square-foot former AP Super Service Dodge dealership into a Community Event Center. Proposals are due at Rogers City Hall by Friday, October 16, at 1:00 p.m. local time. That's eight days from today. The proposals aren't sealed bids, so the city can review them as they come in.

If you've lived here through a few winters, the reason for this project is already on the town calendar. A lot of downtown's gathering happens outside, and the calendar thins out fast once the outdoor season ends. An event center on Third Street is the DDA's answer to the months when there isn't much going on.

How a 1941 Dealership Got Here

The building has been on the DDA's list for a while. The full public record, as it stands today, looks like this:

The 1930 directory ad doesn't prove the business was already working out of this building. The main structure dates to 1941, so the ad is a link to the business name, not to this particular building.

The lot is bigger than it looks from the sidewalk. According to the Presque Isle County Land Bank Authority's 2025 request for proposals, the two buildings sit on about one and three-quarters acres. That 2025 work focused on keeping the buildings standing. A State Land Bank Authority Blight Elimination Grant, funded with federal dollars, was set to pay for the roofs. Because of that funding, Davis-Bacon wage rules applied to the job. The roof RFP set a year-end 2025 target. The documents reviewed for this post don't confirm whether the work finished on time.

The step now underway is different. Last year's work was a stabilization project. This year's request is for an actual renovation of the main building into a public event space. On its Main Street/DDA page, the DDA calls the project part of its "ongoing mission to revitalize downtown."

What the Calendar Says About Why

Look at how Rogers City spent the past few weeks and the next few.

In late September, the Presque Isle County Advance reported on a Fall Art Walk along Third and Erie streets, held on a Friday from 4 to 7 p.m. That's the same Third Street where the old dealership sits. The next day brought the fourth annual Hops in the Hole beer festival at Westminster Park, where a $25 ticket covered six pours and a souvenir cup.

October is full, but it's spread across venues that each belong to a different group:

• October 10, noon to 3 p.m.: Meet Your Local Museums, with the Presque Isle Historical Museum and the Great Lakes Lore Museum serving cider and doughnuts.
• October 11: a paint-and-sip at Cook's Coffee Nook from 1 to 3 p.m., and a Soup Swap at VFW Post 607 from 4 to 9 p.m.
• October 17 and 18, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.: Harvest Days at the Herman Vogler Conservation Area, hosted by the Presque Isle Conservation District. The weekend includes guided hikes, live music, food trucks, a harvest market, a tasting trail, a kids' scavenger hunt, and harvest demonstrations.
• October 18, 4 p.m.: the 40 Mile Point Lighthouse closes for the season.
• October 31: Halloween at VFW Post 607. Doors open at 3 p.m., karaoke starts at 7, and there will be costumes, prizes, and raffles.

Then comes November. Right now, the November 2026 section of the downtown events calendar lists one item: the regular Main Street/DDA board meeting at Rogers City Hall on November 11.

You can read that two ways. Organizers may still be adding winter events. It's also the same gap the city wrote into its plans three years ago. The 2023 downtown transformation strategy lists year-round activities and active community gathering spaces as goals for the whole district. The strategy doesn't name the A&P building as the place for them. Still, a 4,000-square-foot indoor room downtown, owned by the organization that runs the downtown calendar, fits those goals better than anything else on Third Street.

A Bigger Main Street Track Record Than Most Towns This Size

The event center isn't the DDA's first downtown project. On October 6, the Michigan Economic Development Corporation recognized Rogers City for five years in the Michigan Main Street program. As of 2025, MEDC credited the town with 13 new businesses, 18 façade and building rehabilitations, 8,526 volunteer hours, and more than $497,000 in private investment.

Those 18 rehabilitations are the backdrop for the A&P project, but this one is a different kind of job. Most façade work helps a building that already has an owner and a business inside. Here, the DDA owns the property itself. That makes it one of the few downtown buildings whose future gets decided in public meetings and published bid documents.

The program also supports individual businesses. In June, MEDC's Match on Main program awarded Rogers City Main Street $20,000 for Beauty Boutique. When Rogers City first joined Michigan Main Street, the Advance reported in 2022 that the program provided professional services at no cost instead of direct cash for the local program. A big renovation like this one has to be paid for some other way, which brings us to what's still unknown.

What Hasn't Been Decided Yet

The public documents leave several basics open. Here's where each one stands as of October 8, 2026:

1. Cost. At a joint planning session reported by The Alpena News in August 2025, Mayor Scott McLennan's project list put the A&P Super Service rehab at "$250,000 plus grants." That was a line on a six-year capital planning list that the City Council, DDA, Parks and Recreation Commission, and Planning Commission were working through together. It wasn't an approved budget or a grant award. Bids from contractors will be the first real cost numbers.
2. Contractor. Proposals are due October 16, and no award has been announced. The RFP says there won't be a pre-bid conference. Questions go to City Manager Joe Hefele.
3. Opening date. The construction request doesn't include a completion or opening timeline.
4. What will happen inside. Rentals, markets, winter programs, or a mix of these are all reasonable guesses, but none has been announced. The documents reviewed here call it a Community Event Center and don't describe any programming.
5. The 1931 accessory building. The 2025 roof work covered both buildings. The 2026 request covers only the 4,000-square-foot main building.

The next public checkpoint is the DDA board's regular meeting at Rogers City Hall on November 11. By then the proposal window will have been closed for almost four weeks. If you want to see the bid documents, you can request PDF copies from City Hall by email at no cost. You can also view a full-size set in person at 193 E. Michigan Avenue, Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. City Hall's phone number is (989) 734-2191.

Until then, the fall plan for Rogers City still looks familiar: Harvest Days at Herman Vogler on the 17th and 18th, the last afternoon at 40 Mile Point on the 18th, and the VFW on Halloween. If the renovation goes forward, the town will have an indoor place for what comes after.

I'm Eric Arnoldi with Eric Arnoldi, and I live just up the shore in Presque Isle. I'm following the A&P Super Service project because a working event center on Third Street could change how downtown Rogers City feels between October and May. If you own property near the 300 block or you're curious how projects like this affect the blocks around them, let's connect. I'm glad to talk it through.