Chandler Park to rise again with $20M makeover

A group of longtime and former Detroit residents has formed the Chandler Park Conservancy to oversee a $20-million transformation of the nearly 100-year-old, 200-acre east-side park that will include new football and soccer fields, tennis courts and the state's first urban conservation school for K-12 students.

"The entire park will be a living lab for ecology and conservation," said Maggie DeSantis, president and CEO of the East Side Community Network, formerly the Warren-Conner Development Coalition, which is facilitating the project for the conservancy. Nearly half the money is in hand, including the funding for the school and fields. The conservancy continues to raise the rest.

"We want students at the school to be able to learn about the environment through the park, whether it's wetlands, certain kinds of trees, flower gardens or food gardens," she said. "The campus will deal with infrastructure installations that everybody understands since the flooding last August."

That massive flooding, which caused an estimated $1.1 billion in cleanup and repair costs, left hundreds of Detroiters with flooded basements, sewers and yards. The disaster cast a light on the need for legions of conservation and environmental workers in our community and made clear that the antiquated Detroit water system that manages storm water could use some help from additional management systems.

DeSantis said the school will be a regional campus, eventually accommodating 800 students who will run the park's storm water management and irrigation system through tree canopies, rain gardens and other methods. Their work will save the city money and train future employees who can help do the same for other parks, she said.

Besides the school and athletic fields, which are slated to open in September 2016, the plans call for community gardens and updates to the historic comfort station.

All serve to complement the Wayne County Family Aquatic Center, the city's only water park, which continues to operate on the grounds and is loved by local parents like Lisa Vosburg, a sign language interpreter and mother of four who goes to the park with a group of about 26 neighbors several times a month.

"It's awesome. It's an absolutely beautiful place," she said, adding that the aquatic center "is just as nice as what we have in Grosse Pointe Park. It's super clean, and the lifeguards were incredible."

Vosburg, 36, said that she and her husband, Brian Vosburg, an urban planner, lived in Detroit for 10 years, but finally had to move to find good schools. She said that had the school planned on the Chandler Park grounds happened sooner, they might have stayed.

"My children are 11, 9 years old and one just turned 6," she said. "That would have been an absolute game-changer for us four years ago because that was one of our biggest reasons to move."

As the city's landscape changes, dictated by various plans and community groups and city government, the conservancy made sure that its plans mesh with those of the Lower Eastside Action Plan (LEAP) and the Detroit Future City Strategic Framework.

"The fulfillment of this vision for Chandler Park will be a giant step forward for Detroit's east side," Jim Nicholson, CEO of PVS Chemicals, said in the transformation's strategic outline. "The stewardship of our natural resources and the development of social and recreational opportunities for people of all ages will greatly enhance our community for years to come."

The park renovation comes a month after a bankruptcy judge approved Detroit's plans to restructure its debt and emerge from bankruptcy. Rather than lead to chaos, the bankruptcy united residents statewide to save one Detroit icon — the Detroit Institute of Arts — and inspired residents across the city to find ways to improve their own neighborhoods, improvements they know the city can no longer afford.

Last month, the Kresge Foundation announced it would award millions of dollars in grants to projects that transform neighborhoods. And last year, River Rouge Park — thanks to Lear and dogged efforts by state Rep. Harvey Santana, D-Detroit — re-opened its two Olympic-sized swimming pools for the first time in decades.

Ending disappointment

Inspired by the Belle Isle Conservancy, which was formed to support the city's island and state park, the Chandler conservancy emerged last year from the Chandler Park Promise Coalition, which had worked for nearly a decade to come back from a reneged-upon promise from the Salvation Army.

In 2005, the Salvation Army's eastern Michigan division announced to much fanfare plans to build the Ray and Joan Kroc Center. But four years later, the group abandoned those plans, despite myriad and creative attempts to change their minds. The coalition was dogged in its continuing pursuit.

"Within about three days of the Salvation Army announcement, the phone lines started burning up," DeSantis said. Within a week, dozens of people came together and formed the Save Our Kroc coalition. At their urging, Mayor Ken Cockrel Jr. tried to intervene, but he was unsuccessful.

So the group put together a caravan of three buses carrying 150 people and headed for the Salvation Army's regional headquarters in Chicago. They picketed outside to no avail. Finally, they took one last stand for the holidays.

"In November, when the big red kettle went up at Campus Martius, we created Save Our Kroc wooden nickels and gave them out so people could drop them into the Salvation Army bucket. They did that until security escorted them off the property," DeSantis said.

Undaunted, the group decided to go ahead on its own. Now that the dream is nearing fruition, DeSantis said the group wants to "thank the Salvation Army for raising our expectations."

Building excitement

Armed with a grant from the Kellogg Foundation and a designation of Premier Park status from the city, the group began raising funds on its own. Last year, the Detroit Police Department began dedicated patrols day and night in the park.

"I grew up near Pingree Park, and we played baseball there," the conservancy's chairman, Phil Pierce, 62, said in the project's strategic plan.

"But when we had our baseball tournaments, we knew that if we made it far enough, we would end up playing for the championship at Chandler Park. So making it to Chandler Park was making it to the big time," said Pierce, managing member of Pierce, Monroe and Associates, a financial management and information technology consulting firm.

In a later interview, Pierce, a volunteer and donor, added that he hopes to see that same excitement about the park again. He's doing his part.

"When I talk to others who grew up in the area, and I advocate or encourage them to make a contribution, their giving is without hesitation, those who are familiar with the park," he said.

And for anyone who isn't, he makes them familiar real quick.

"I was standing with a client friend recently and giving him the background of the park. He said, 'Why is it worth my donation?' I went on to tell him about the amenities when I was a kid but more importantly that we're trying to do return it to the luster we enjoyed as kids. I gave him my speech about the programs we're focusing on and the addition of the soccer field, football field, tennis courts and the green space. I said if I had to sum, it is worthful. 'Worthful' means having worth and merit and value. And Chandler has all three.

"He said, 'Boy, you're really into this, aren't you? All right, how much do you want?' "

The construction and renovations will last through 2017, the park's 100th anniversary as a Detroit entity — and beyond.

Realizing a dream

Like many Detroit parks, Chandler had fallen into disrepair. But the residents who grew up using it as kids never forgot its glory. They've taken those first ambitious plans from a century ago, and from a decade ago, and created a vision for the 21st Century.

A hundred years ago, park planners wanted Chandler to rival Belle Isle, with a new golf course, a casino, a concert venue, tennis courts and greenhouses. Ironically, in the 1960s, Detroit Public Schools officials and local residents discussed building an elementary school in the park. A half-century later, that dream will be realized.

The school, to be named the Lighthouse Academy at Chandler Park, will sit along Conner Creek Greenway. Excellent Schools Detroit CEO Dan Varner called the park plans "a promising and potentially game-changing set of ingredients for Detroit's east side: a high-performing public school, best-of-class recreation facilities and a conservation-themed campus to educate and inspire youth."

And Detroit PAL, which runs athletic programs for 11,000 children and trains more than 1,500 coaches and mentors each year, is a partner. One of its football teams began practicing at the park two years ago.

It was the first sports activity at the park in 20 years.

Contact Rochelle Riley: rriley99@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @rochelleriley.

4 Facts About Chandler Park

■Chandler is a regional park that covers 200 acres of land.

■Chandler has one of four Detroit-owned golf courses within the city limits. The city's fifth golf course is in Huntington Woods.

■The park was named for Zachariah Chandler, a well-known abolitionist and former Detroit mayor.

■Chandler Park originally was owned by Grosse Pointe, but was annexed by Detroit in 1916.