A to-be-formed conservancy is seeking to raise $5 million needed for large-scale improvements to Grand Circus Park, and the parking garage below it is slated for at least $15 million in upgrades.

Among the hoped-for upgrades are the installation of a sidewalk around the 5-acre park, replacement of the "pillboxes" that serve as the exits/entrances to the parking garage below the park and installation of a boulevard through Woodward Avenue where it bisects the space.

Stacy Fox, co-founder and principal of Detroit-based developer The Roxbury Group, which is part of a joint-venture operating and improving the Grand Circus Park garage, said the conservancy is an offshoot of the Theater District Association, a 501(c)3 nonprofit that has raised about $750,000 through its annual Grand Circus Gala every summer for lighting, landscaping, trees and fountains in the area.

"The Theater District Association has been a very good steward of this initiative the past four years, but it has other priorities that it is also interested in. It's not just the park that the association is involved in or concerned with, it's about the broader theater district," Fox said.

The conservancy will focus exclusively, on the park itself, with a board consisting of representatives from the city, the nearby property owners and the Downtown Detroit Partnership, which partners with the association, and will partner with the conservancy, on execution of priorities and initiatives, Fox said.

Fox said the $5 million effort is a reasonable milestone.

"Given what we have done with just the gala, I think that's an achievable goal," she said.