Though still a little ragged around the edges, Detroit’s Palmer Park, nearly 300 acres of wooded greenspace west of Woodward between 6 and 7 Mile Roads, offers a recreational haven open to rich and poor, city dweller and suburbanite, alike.

This natural preserve has now attracted a new idea to turn a big part of the park into a vast new development of retail and housing, bedecked with hanging gardens and anchored by an interior lake and futuristic architecture.

The concept — just an idea in embryo and not yet presented to city officials or the community — comes from businessmen Larry Mongo and Rod Lockwood. They last made a splash in 2013 with an idea to turn Belle Isle into an independent commonwealth where crime, taxes and government regulation would be unknown.

That idea went nowhere and became a target of widespread scorn. Whether this new concept goes any further is yet to be seen. It will face opposition from, among others, the nonprofit People for Palmer Park community group that has led the park’s restoration for several years.

Specifically, Mongo and Lockwood would like to turn the park's golf course, about half the total area of the park, into their new development, leaving the southern portion of the park as is. The city-owned golf course has been closed due to a lack of funds to maintain it.

Mongo, best known as the owner of the Café D’Mongo speakeasy downtown, said the concept that he calls “Palmer Square” could supercharge the city’s revitalization efforts.

“The location is perfect,” he said. “You’re seven miles away from downtown Birmingham and seven miles away from downtown Detroit. It’s truly the center of our hope for the future.”

And Lockwood said the concept of Palmer Square could jump start an important area that is distant from the downtown revival.

"The downtown area is just a beautiful architectural area, and downtown is rehabbing and putting back into service these terrific architecturally sound buildings. But the rest of Detroit is going to have to seek its identify. And when it comes to Palmer Park, it needs to have its own brand," he said.

Lockwood said he and Mongo might make a formal announcement of their proposal in a week or two.

Hell, no!

Rochelle Lento, president of the People for Palmer Park, isn’t buying it.

“Palmer Park is a regional park that is 300 acres of just incredible green space for the entire surrounding community,” she said. “That’s a jewel that we are going to keep that way.”

Any attempt to develop the park as housing or retail would run into legal roadblocks, she added.

“The park is deed restricted,” Lento said. “The Palmer family gave it to the City of Detroit and it’s very clear. I have all the deeds and they’re very clear it’s for the public good and it must remain a green space. And there’s even language in these historic deeds that it must be for the good of all.”

An Olmsted park

The park exists at all because the family of U.S. Sen. Thomas Palmer, who represented Michigan in Congress in the late 19th Century, gifted the land to the City of Detroit for perpetual use as parkland. It was designed by famed landscape architects Frederick Law Olmsted and Charles Eliot.

Palmer Park is bordered by historic neighborhoods including Sherwood Forest and Palmer Woods, the private Detroit Golf Club, and the Art Deco Palmer Park historic apartment district.

Less than a mile to the north lies the former Michigan State Fairgrounds, which just Monday saw the development group Magic Plus LLC close on their 16-acre purchase of property along Woodward, slated for redevelopment. The City of Detroit will close on the remaining 142 acres of the fairgrounds property later this month, although no plans have been announced yet.

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The current plan

Lento’s group, working with the city, several years ago adopted a master plan for the park that had been neglected for years because of the city’s budget woes.

That master plan, developed by planner Robert Gibbs and several others working with Lento’s nonprofit group, maintains the bucolic nature of the park, where some trees are said to be hundreds of years old, while adding some new recreational amenities.

In line with the master plan, the city is building new tennis courts in the park along Woodward. When opened this summer, that will include eight courts for adults and six for youths.

In addition, the city and the community group in recent years have renovated the historic log cabin in the park. There’s a splash pad and playscape for kids, and other improvements have been made or are on the way.

Despite the still-incomplete nature of the renovations, the park is home to multiple events and programs throughout the year, from bike rides and yoga classes to an annual art fair that draws thousands.

“We’ve definitely come a long way in the last 7½ years,” Lento said. “A master plan is conceptual and it’s not something you can implement overnight. So our approach has been to implement pieces of the master plan and I think we’ve made great strides.”

Hanging gardens and a flying carpet

Central to the concept that Mongo and Lockwood envision is a design crafted by a team headed by Nicolae Halmaghi, a Romanian-born designer who recently moved to Detroit from Chicago. His renderings show a series of mixed-use buildings along Woodward and some luxury condo towers along the park’s western edge facing the Detroit Golf Club.

In the middle, a lake district includes a number of recreational features include a “magic flying carpet” that would be an undulating play area for kids.

A key to the concept is what Halmaghi calls “experiential retail,” a blend of narrow streets and open shops similar to what tourists find in Europe’s classic older cities, blended with generous use of vegetation cascading down the facades of buildings.

The result, according to the vision, will be so exciting as to become a draw for the region. “If you link all these things, you’re arriving at a place where these kinds of sparks can be projected to the entire city,” he said.

Referring to Halmaghi and his design partner, Daniel Pouzet, Lockwood said, "These guys are very, very creative. I think Detroit needs something like that."

Unlikely to happen?

Given how long even popular developments take to build, it is unlikely this new concept for Palmer Park could happen for years at the earliest. And the idea of losing one of the city’s biggest and most important parks makes the idea even more problematic.

Halmaghi responded that Detroit has so much vacant land that Palmer Park could be used for something else. “Every other city is so dense that they have to have parks. Detroit is likely to have hundreds and hundreds of mini-parks that are happening anyway.”

There is no price tag for the Palmer Square concept yet. Clearly so much new development would cost $1 billion or more.

But whatever the price, Lento said it’s not worth it.

“I’m certain that the community will not support it at all,” she said.

Contact John Gallagher at313-222-5173 or gallagher@freepress.com.Follow him on Twitter@jgallagherfreep. Read more on business and sign up for our business newsletter.