Cedar Station at 9044 S. Kasson Street began as a 1960s gas station. In 2005 GreenSky Company, run by architect Thom Greene and his wife Nadeen Kieren, renovated it to bring shops and the arts into downtown Cedar. The building is small, and it has one bathroom.
That bathroom turned out to matter a great deal. The Leelanau Ticker reported in December 2025 that because the building has one bathroom for all three tenants, the health code technically allows only 25 people inside at a time. At the end of this past August, Cedar's 44th Polka Fest drew an estimated 9,300 people over four days.
Those two numbers explain most of what has happened on Kasson Street over the past year. Cedar doesn't lack people who want to gather. It lacks indoor space that can legally hold them.
Seven Months of a Full Room
The Folded Leaf opened in Cedar Station on April 26, 2025. Owner Rachel Zemanek ran it as a bookstore, art gallery and what she called a "community living room," with a heavy schedule of live music and events. Before it opened, the Glen Arbor Sun described it as a bookstore that would double as a gathering space.
The gathering part took off. By December 5, Zemanek had announced she was "beginning the urgent search for a new, larger location in Cedar, Maple City, or Lake Leelanau," according to the Leelanau Ticker. Her lease ran through May 29, 2026. When she asked about renewing early, the landlords told her they felt she had outgrown the space.
The Inspection That Set the Ceiling
Public support moved quickly. On December 9 the landlords offered a one-year lease extension, with one condition: the Leelanau County Building Department had to inspect the building. That inspection took place on a Tuesday morning. By mid-afternoon Zemanek was telling followers that The Folded Leaf had to stop hosting any event, gathering or workshop with more than 10 people, counting staff, performers and artists, effective immediately.
Selling books could continue. As she told the Leelanau Ticker:
"We can continue to operate as a retail space; we're grandfathered in on that front. The problem is that about 75 percent of our business operations are event and community space based."
A concert with singer-songwriter May Erlewine, planned for the store that same week, moved to the Old Art Building in Leland. So when Cedar's biggest indoor draw of the year needed a bigger room, the nearest one was in another town.
The building owners framed it the same way. In a statement the Leelanau Ticker published in February, Kieren and Greene said Cedar Station "was a great spot to establish a bookstore," but that the store's "rapid expansion into an event space and tasting room overwhelmed the building's capacity and intended use." They wished Zemanek success in her new location.
Where the Bookstore Went
The Folded Leaf closed its Cedar location at the start of February 2026 and moved into the Commongrounds building on Eighth Street in Traverse City. Zemanek planned a soft opening in early March and a grand reopening on April 26, one year to the day after the Cedar opening. She told the Ticker the new space would carry the same new and used books, local art and goods, and that it would let her host events again.
In July, The Ticker reported that the bookstore would become a nonprofit focused on child literacy. Zemanek also told the Leelanau Ticker she planned to keep live music going in Leelanau County through "The Folded Leaf Presents," a concert series hosted by partner businesses.
What Stayed at Cedar Station
The 25-person cap applies to the whole building, so it touched every tenant. In December, Bee Well owner Liz Neddo told the Leelanau Ticker that most of her own work would also be impossible under the newly discovered limit. Bee Well opened on Black Friday 2024 in the basement, with a retail shop and a "nonprofit community space for families to use seven days a week." Neddo had just renewed her lease and planned to hire an architect to look at possible renovations or an expansion.
Bee Well is still there. Its website lists 9044 S. Kasson Street, with hours of 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday. The entrance is off the alley behind the building. If you park on Kasson, a large yellow "Visit Bee Well" sign points you to the stairs down to the door. Bee Well is also raising money to furnish the family space with materials, furniture, play elements and art supplies. Its page shows $11,482 raised toward a $75,000 goal, and 25% of sales at Bee Curious, the retail side, go to Bee Well activities.
Jeweler Dana Fear had been a Cedar Station tenant for five and a half years when the inspection happened. Her studio wasn't directly affected. She told the Ticker she counts on people stumbling across her shop, and that "what's good for her is what's good for all of us."
The Same Owners Run the Busiest Room Across the Street
Cedar's capacity story includes a twist. In May 2025, Thom Greene and Nadeen Kieren joined Jim and Suzie Greene in buying Cedar Tavern from the Stachnik family, as the Leelanau Ticker reported. The new owners said they would keep the menu and prices the same, make small improvements, and look at better ways to use the patio. Patio space is outdoor space, which is the kind of room Cedar has plenty of.
Cedar Tavern sits at 9039 S. Kasson Street, almost across the street from Cedar Station. The village's business directory lists it as closed Monday, open 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, and 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.
In August the tavern took its kitchen outdoors to the crowd. The Leelanau Enterprise's Polka Fest preview noted that Cedar Tavern would vend at the festival for the first time. The Enterprise later reported that more than 100 volunteers helped run the event.
Kasson Street This Fall, Building by Building
| Address | Building | What's there, per the latest reporting |
|---|---|---|
| 9044 S. Kasson | Cedar Station, a 1960s gas station renovated in 2005 | Bee Well in the basement, entrance off the alley |
| 9039 S. Kasson | Cedar Tavern | Owned by the Greene family group since May 2025, menu and prices kept |
| Downtown Cedar | Former Cedar State Bank | Owned by Corey Flaska since January 2024, with Zemanek in talks about a Cedar location there as of February 2026 |
The Old Bank Is the Next Room in Play
The building most likely to change Cedar's room count is the former Cedar State Bank. According to the village's history page, the bank opened in 1905, closed in the late 1930s, and later housed the Leelanau Telephone Company offices. The Leelanau Enterprise reported that the original two-story building burned in early March 1926 and was replaced with a single-story structure. In January 2024, Corey Flaska bought the vacant building from Bill Kasben for $150,000 and said he wanted to "preserve the integrity" of it.
Zemanek's name came up in connection with the bank building this year. When The Folded Leaf left for Traverse City, she told the Leelanau Ticker she was in talks to open a future Cedar location in the historic bank building Flaska is redeveloping. She told the Traverse City Ticker the same thing, while saying her goal was a permanent home in Traverse City. In both reports, a Cedar return was described as a possibility for the future, not a commitment.
Separately, the Solon Township Planning Commission minutes from March 3, 2026 record that the zoning administrator was "Currently reviewing Flaska SUP at 8995 Kasson." The minutes don't say which building that permit covers or whether it was approved.
Last December's "Light It Up, Cedar" was billed as a one-year alternative kickoff, led by The Folded Leaf and Dana Fear, with a tree lighting at Cedar Station on December 3. Back in December, Zemanek floated an idea to the Leelanau Ticker: crowdfunding "a true community center," a new building for all three Cedar Station businesses. Bee Well's Neddo, for her part, was optimistic that Cedar Station itself could be modified to serve all three tenants.
If you own an older building on or near Kasson Street, or you're thinking about buying one with a particular use in mind, Team Shimek can walk you through how buildings like these have been used and what local buyers look for in a Cedar storefront. Schedule a free consultation and we'll start with your address.
