County and city determining how to proceed on Sawtooth Bluffs
Progress on the Sawtooth Bluffs plans has been slow in recent months as the county and city continue to determine how to proceed.
The Sawtooth Bluffs is a 640-acre site along the Gunflint Trail west of the Grand Marais water tower. It comprises land owned by the City of Grand Marais and Cook County.
Sawtooth Mountain Bluffs Graphic provided by Cook County
In December 2024, the Cook County Board of Commissioners finalized the 2025 budget, allocating $29,500 for design and architectural plans for Sawtooth Bluffs. Since then, County Parks and Trails Coordinator Mitch Travis, along with the Parks and Trails Commission, has taken the lead on the project.
One of the objectives identified in past Parks and Trails Commission meetings is to designate the site as a regionally significant park. The designation would be approved by the Greater Minnesota Regional Parks and Trails Commission (GMRPTC) and increase opportunities for additional funding to carry out identified projects.
Since allocating $29,500 in the 2025 budget, the Parks and Trails Commission launched a survey to gauge public interest in developing the site. Find the survey results here. However, since then, there has been little progress, as the county and city have yet to establish a formal process for how to proceed.
“We need to collaborate with the City of Grand Marais on this project because of the joint land ownership,” Travis said.
Travis said he has spoken with city officials, including City Administrator Mike Roth and Grand Marais Mayor Tracy Benson, who have expressed that the city does not want to co-lead the project at this time. Instead, they would like the county to develop a plan and then present it to the city for review.
“We won’t be leaders in that project,” Mayor Benson said. “We’ll certainly be at the table when they are able to put that together. I don’t know that they’re at that point yet.”
As of late July, the county had yet to hire a landscape architect to formulate an updated master plan for the site. The previous Sawtooth Bluffs master plan, created in 2018, identifies potential development opportunities that include a campground, bike trails, hiking trails, disc golf, and other recreational amenities. An updated master plan is needed to submit to the GMRPTC to determine if the site qualifies as a regionally significant park.
Travis said in a July 30 interview with WTIP that he is currently “moving forward with reaching out to landscape architecture firms in an attempt to identify what it would cost to hire a firm.”
County and city land comprise the Sawtooth Bluffs area | Photo by M Baxley
The issue of when a joint powers agreement should be established between the city and county has been a topic of recent discussion among city and county officials. Benson said a joint powers agreement is not yet in place, but that the city “will have a joint powers agreement in order for us to participate in this.”
It remains undefined at this point whether a joint powers agreement will be established during the information-gathering phase of the project or after the hired landscape architect firm has finalized the updated master plan.
When WTIP asked about the order of operation and when a joint powers agreement will need to be established, Benson said, “It’ll all just kind of depend on how this works out.”
She said the city and county has needed to refresh existing joint powers agreements, but with the county without a permanent administrator since October 2024, the task was put on the back burner. Now that the county has hired a new administrator, she said, “Maybe we can get some of these things back on track,” including establishing a joint powers agreement for Sawtooth Bluffs.
Cook County Commissioner Garry Gamble, who serves as an alternate on the Parks and Trails Commission, met with Benson on Aug. 6 to discuss the Sawtooth Bluffs and potential avenues for moving forward. Gamble said they also discussed the need for a joint powers agreement.
With less than five months remaining in 2025 and a joint powers agreement to be established, the need to hire a landscape architect, and the county undergoing 2026 budget discussions, WTIP asked Gamble if the $29,500 would remain allocated in the county’s budget. Gamble said his understanding is that it would, given that the county is using Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) funds to set aside for recreational purposes, such as the Sawtooth Bluffs.
Despite the slow progress and tasks that lie ahead, Travis said he remains optimistic about the process and the feedback received from the community in the recent survey. “It showed that there is still interest out there among the community to have this built,” he said.
Travis said the common theme in the survey results indicated that the public wanted the county to maintain a “light touch” to ensure that the hillside is preserved aesthetically but also utilized in a way that will “be a net benefit to the health and well-being of the community.”
From the city’s perspective, Benson said the intent is to keep the “hillside preserved” and maintain the existing green landscape.
WTIP’s Kalli Hawkins spoke with Parks and Trails Coordinator Mitch Travis for an update on Sawtooth Bluffs plans. The audio from the interview is below.
Kalli Hawkins August 13, 2025
