Monica Scott: Grand Rapids Press

GRAND RAPIDS:  Barbara McFall says the importance of having a neighborhood park where families can be active and interact with each other cannot be measured.

A neighbor to the closed Lexington Elementary, McFall and residents who live by three other schools that closed will soon get to help design a space that would transform part of the land from schoolyards to neighborhood parks.

“Parks are really important because they are a gathering place for communities,” said McFall, who has school-age children. “I am really excited. My hope is a usable space is created that is accepted by the community and will be well-maintained.”

Grand Rapids Public Schools owns a quarter of the city’s parks. The drawback to that is with the district right-sizing due to declining enrollment, the closure and sale of neighborhood schools can leave areas park-poor. The city is already below the national average in park acreage.

That’s why city planners, Friends of Grand Rapids Parks and the developer seeking to convert three of the schools into apartments are working together to preserve the green space.

Bruce Michael, owner of Ojibway Development, has a $1.6 million purchase agreement with the district for three of the elementary schools and is donating land on each to the city. Oakdale school, at 944 Evergreen St. SE, was closed in 2003, while Lexington school, 45 Lexington Ave. NW, and Eastern school, 748 Eastern Ave. NE, were closed in 2008.

“This is an amazing opportunity to create a place where people can still gather as a community and be active,” said Steve Faber of Friends of Grand Rapids Parks, which received $46,440 from the Dyer-Ives Foundation to develop park plans. “There is a real impact to losing public space.”

Faber said school neighbors assumed the green space would always be there. He said the joint use facilities agreement between the city and school district, adopted in the 1950s.

A formal offer can’t be made yet on the Stocking School property, 863 Seventh St. NW, until the city declines first right of refusal.

“Keeping the open space is positive for the community and an asset for the property,” said Michael, who added Minnesota’s Dominium Development and Acquisition is no longer a partner in the housing project.

He recently submitted his special land use application to the city for his housing project.

While optimistic, Faber and others say the parks effort won’t die if Michael fails to get approved.

In a few weeks, neighbors will be invited to come to planning meetings to develop the park plans. Grand Rapids-based RJM Design is the landscape architect they will work with on the project. A decision made with a team of neighbors, including McFall.

“We want to help maintain and enhance the quality of life of our residents,” said Jay Steffen, parks and recreation director, who said the city will commit $20,000 to the planning. “Grand Rapids has 7.88 acres of park land per 1,000 people but the national average is 12 to 15 acres. We’d like to shoot for the higher acreage.”

What kind of park will best complement your community? That’s the question for residents to ponder and share, said Faber. He said once they have the plans, they’ll have to acquire funds to execute them.

“Developing urban parks involves multiple partners and multiple tools,” said Faber.

McFall says she can envision her 9, 11 and 13-year-old running and playing with other kids in the park and the neighborhood, enjoying a movie night on the lawn.

Monica Scott - Grand Rapids Press

Tune in to hear about the design process with the community, purchasing equipment from the KaBoom program and how Aberdeen became the 13th park that has benefited from this partnership.

INTERVIEW (10:13)

http://therapidian.org/catalyst-kaboom-build-aberdeen

Friends of Grand Rapids Parks and Amway join us on air to talk about their efforts, along with Creston Neighborhood Association and the City of Grand Rapids, to build a new playscape at Aberdeen Park on Sept. 23. Within six hours' time, 200 volunteers (more than 100 of whom are Amway employees) will have readied the grounds, assembled the play set and host a ribbon cutting ceremony without the aid of power tools.

Tune in to hear Steve Faber of Friends and Michelle Meulendyk of Amway's corporate citizenship division talk about the design process with the community, purchasing equipment from the KaBOOM! program and how Aberdeen became the 13th park that has benefited from this partnership.

Music this week comes from Taken By Trees with their songs "Sunshine Lady" and "Open Field."

Green Gala: Come Out & Play! from GR Social Diary on Vimeo.

GRAND RAPIDS PRESS: Jeff Kanan

About 20 volunteers and parks staff laid woodchips and placed equipment including a large rope climb, push-up bars, a balance beam and other structures at Roosevelt Park on Saturday.

They weren’t building a playground, but were finishing installation of a 12-station fitness course as part of a nationwide health and wellness program.

Project FIT works with community partners to improve the availability of exercise locations and healthy food near schools. The equipment at Roosevelt Park and Martin Luther King Jr. Park, which was completed about four weeks ago, was funded as part of a $1 million grant from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan.

Volunteers worked from early in the morning into the afternoon during the second day of a two-day installation process to finish construction on the exercise course that’s close to the park’s playground.

“The goal is really that kids and parents of those kids that are learning about this stuff in school can carry that out into the neighborhood as well and work on their fitness goals as part of the neighborhood program,” said Steve Faber, Friends of Grand Rapids Parks director. “To be able to go and work at your outdoor gym is kind of an attraction for people.”

Friends of Grand Rapids supported efforts by volunteers and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan employees, along with the city’s parks and recreation department, for the job.

The project stems from Michigan State University’s College of Human Medicine, which has worked with students, parents and staff at four city elementary schools to promote healthy lifestyles.

Jay Steffen, Grand Rapids Parks and Recreation director, said he anticipates the equipment will be used by neighborhood residents and students from the nearby Potter’s House School.

“It’s always great to engage the neighborhood in coming out and helping to improve their neighborhood park,” Steffen said.

Pam Chapman, volunteer office administrator with the John M. Burgess Health and Wellness Center, sees the park as a good exercise destination and creates a favorable setup with the equipment being located across from the playground, where adults could bring their kids.

”You need exercise to make sure the kids stay active, especially because a lot of P.E. programs are being taken out of schools,” Chapman said. “Parents will love coming to the park.”

By Lindsey Smith

Neighbors, community members, children, and Grand Rapids Police Officers gathered in the Baxter Neighborhood to celebrate the completion of Joe Taylor Park, a nearly decade-long project.

"I think it is wonderful, I think i'ts beautiful, who would have thought they would have ended up naming a park after my brother," said June Taylor.

 Her older brother, Grand Rapids Police Officer Joe Taylor, was killed in 1987 not far from the park location. The 29-year-old officer was on duty responding to a homicide suspect when he was shot.

"As officer Taylor went into the house to search, he was ambushed by the door," said Grand Rapids Police Chief Kevin Belk.

The park is not only named after him but represents something he loved: children.

"He would have been ecstatic, he loved kids and the community," said June Taylor.

The park expansion nearly doubled its size.

It includes an underground storm water treatment facility, LED lights for park lighting, low maintenance plant material, integration of existing playground equipment, and a water playground that reuses water to irrigate trees, grass and shrubs in the park.

Children from the neighborhood enjoy the new water splash pad.

"Because it's fun over here," said 6-year old DeAndre Anderson who wrote the 'fun' on a ribbon and tied it on the park fence as part of the rededication.

Pamela Johnson enjoys watching her 3-year old grandson play in the water and hopes the park will help move the Baxter Neighborhood away from crime.

"It's most likely going to help the kids stay away from going out and doing things that can get them into trouble," said Johnson.

The park reconstruction and expansion was done thanks to public and private support and years of input from the community and the neighborhood.

Funding comes from a Capital Improvement Fund Bond, a Community Development Block Grant and a gift from Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation through Friends of Grand Rapids Parks, who also established an endowment to help ensure the park can be maintained and improved over time.

Grand Rapids Press

GRAND RAPIDS – As she frolicked on the water spray pad at Joe Taylor Park, 9-year-old Jasmine Jones summed up her thoughts on the newly installed amenities.

“This park is the most beautiful park I've ever been to,” she said. “You can play here and get wet at the same time and you can have a barbecue here.”

City officials who plan to formally dedicate the inner city park today think it's pretty special, too.

“For me, personally, this has been a labor of love,” said Jay Steffen, the city's Parks and Recreation Director. “It's a project we've worked on very hard. It's taken an effort by almost every department in the city.”

Steve Faber, director of Friends of Grand Rapids Parks, said the new park is a prototype for their campaign to retro-fit old neighborhoods that have a deficit of green space.

“It really sets a standard I hope we can aspire to for other neighborhoods as well,” Faber said. “It's a high quality design and it implements a lot of sustainable features.”

Thanks to a gift from the Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation, it's also one of the few city parks with an endowment for future maintenance.

The co-founder of Amway Corp., whose Dutch immigrant grandfather opened a grocery store and raised seven children in the neighborhood, donated $106,600 to the park project and has pledged $50,000 towards the maintenance endowment.

The 2.2 acre oasis in the middle of the city's North Baxter neighborhood onced was a blighted and sketchy enclave of drug trafficking, poverty and absentee landlords.

The park has its roots in 1976, when 11 tax-reverted lots were seeded over for a pocket park. In 1992, it was named for Joe Taylor, a city police officer who was killed in the line of duty.

In 2003, city officials decided more than double the size of the park by purchasing four homes that were left in the block east of Diamond Avenue SE between Bemis and Baxter streets.

After tearing down the remaining homes in the block, city officials used the site to build an underground treatment reservoir that treats and drains storm water from a 40-acre segment of the neighborhood.

Once the facility was completed as part of the city's overhaul of its sewer system, city officials asked neighbors to help design a kid-friendly park that would surrounded by neighborhood homes facing the park.

The amenities they chose included a picnic shelter, playground toys for small kids, seating areas and a water park. The park also includes public restrooms, a “pervious” parking lot that soaks up rainwater, LED security lighting and a system that re-uses water from the water park to irrigate the park's trees and lawn.

Johnny Jones, a neighborhood resident since 1977 whose home faces the park, said he asked city officials not to install a basketball court that would attract older youth and possible gang activity.

“It's nice to have the little kids out there,” said Jones as he watched the fun unfold at the spray park.

Harry Campbell, an activity leader for the city's Recreation Reaps Rewards program, said the new park has been embraced by the neighborhood. “I really think the neighbors are going to take care of this park,” he said.

Campbell said he does not believe gang activity will be a problem given the park's visibility.

“Since I've been here, the youth that people think have been causing problems haven't been a problem. They respect the park,” he said.

“This is going to be the park of the future,” Campbell said. “A lot of people are going to come here when they find

Besides the gift from the DeVos Foundation, the park was created through a $485,000 grant from city capital improvement bonds and a $100,000 federal Community Development Block Grant.