Plans are finalized for the $20 million Pistons recreation center at Rouge Park, despite recent pushback from advocates over the removal of about two dozen mature oak trees.
More than 70 people showed up to a Thursday night meeting where city officials presented the final design and solicited written feedback on brick color and mural themes. Some members of the Friends of Rouge Park felt the plan left out one key element – dedicated office space for the friends group. Others noted that the city’s public engagement throughout the process was lacking. Despite a recent call from some stakeholders to rethink the site plan, which would mean the removal of 25 100-year-old trees, city officials said Thursday the location will not change.
Construction is expected to start in summer or fall 2024 on the 25,000-square-foot building which will include a fitness center, a multi-use court, a large multi-purpose room, a dance studio, and other features.
“When I first ran for office… one of the major concerns from residents was that this district did not have one recreation center,” District 7 Council Member Fred Durhal III said during the Thursday meeting at the Brennan Pool House. “When we were able to get the donation from the Detroit Pistons in the tune of $20 million, from the generosity of Tom Gores, it helped bring hope for the future for residents.”
Durhal added he’s “more focused on our children” than the debate over removing a portion of the trees.
“The environment that I’m focused on is that they live in an environment that does not have a recreation center, which makes them more susceptible to crime,” he said.
The friends group said it was copied on about 50 letters sent to the city’s General Services Department Director, Crystal Perkins, asking to spare the trees. Perkins said she received just 16, noting that a firewall could have blocked additional ones.
The city agreed to plant five trees for every tree uprooted in the process, officials told residents Thursday.
“If the city had involved the community from the very beginning in determining the exact location of the new center, a compromise could have been hammered out that would meet the city’s need to have the center attached to the pools and the community’s need to protect the trees,” said Sally Petrella, Friends of Rouge Park board president. “The city did not present the final location and loss of 25 trees until the third public meeting on Sep. 25 as a done deal,” she added.
Sataria Lewis, who lives walking distance from Rouge Park, likes some parts of the design.
“I liked how they’re respecting the quality of this old building here,” she said, referring to the Brennan Pool Building. “And they’re still trying to protect the presence of it by not over shining it,” Lewis said.
She said she was not aware of plans to remove trees.
“I really don’t think that Rouge Park is a great area for a new rec center personally,” said Lewis, adding that the center should be bigger. “There’s a lot of people that live in the community and as they renovate the community is going to grow.”
There was no opportunity for public comment at Thursday’s meeting, which stakeholders have raised issues with throughout the planning process for the recreation center. Comment at the meeting was limited to written feedback. Attendees were given sheets of paper to choose between two brick colors for the building and rank their preferred theme for the murals: park history, local nature, neighborhood identity, and abstract art. The paper also had space for programming ideas and general comments.
“There wasn’t a lot on the sheet for people to decide about. We get to pick the colors,” said Antonio Cosme, a Southwest Detroit native and land steward manager for Friends of Rouge Park. “It’s very new Detroit,” he said.
Bethany Howard, City Walls program manager for the city of Detroit, said the surveys are just the start for choosing themurals.
“I want to meet with the community. Usually we’ll come together, have maybe two to three community engagement meetings,” to create a community vision statement,” Howard said.
Once the vision is formed, Howard said there will be an open call to artists to submit mural project ideas.
Friends of Rouge Park, which has provided volunteer work and stewardship of the park for more than two decades, wanted to see an office in the plan.
“Friends of Rouge Park ultimately needs office space and space that’s like a home for us,” Cosme said, so the group can host meetings and educational events, and store materials and equipment it uses in the park. Currently, the group stores equipment in the horse stables, with permission from the Buffalo Soldiers Heritage Association.
The group leads teams of volunteers to clean up the park, remove invasive species, build physical bridges, plant trees, and other activities, contributing nearly 2,000 hours of free labor in 2021, according to the group’s website.
Perkins said an office for the friends group is definitely a possibility. “That’s an option,” she said.
But Cosme said it’s essential.
“If Friends of Rouge Park is to become an organization that has a serious stake and claim in the future of the park and helping guide maintenance and conservation and future plans for the park, I think it’d be nice to have space,” Cosme said.
The City’s perspective on this matter is both ignorant of science and disrespectful to the community. City representatives have behind the scenes admonished community group leaders for pushing for a plan to keep the Brennan Grove trees, threatening that any changes to the plan could undermine the Piston’s donation. Reading this article, that is a patently false statement; the Pistons are deferring to the City and the community, and are willing to make the investment regardless of the location.
This is a recurring trend with our City government; the City has ignored these parks for decades, allowing them to go into disrepair, and its community groups that have worked tirelessly as volunteers to stabilize them. Still to this day, the City does not have adequate staff to maintain these parks, and volunteer organizations pick up the slack for tasks like trash removal, invasive species management, trail maintenance, programming, etc. The City wants to take advantage of free community labor for objectives that should be paid-for positions, like park stewards/rangers, but then ignore the community when it comes to vanity projects like this.
Also, shame on Fred Durhal. I expected more out of him, but to categorically dismiss the concerns of the community regarding this is tone deaf and ignorant. If he doesn’t understand the relevance of culling 25 one hundred year old trees and killing their root systems and disrupting both their carbon capture and storm water absorption capacity, then he should choose to get educated on the topic. He represents a community of environmental justice, and killing mature healthy trees to put up impervious surfaces like buildings and parking lots is contrary to the objectives of addressing environmental justice issues like storm water management and air quality.
Just highly highly disappointed in the City government on this. It seems as if since Brad Dick became the head of general services, the city has adopted a bully position as it pertains to the parks and the objectives of community organizations that support them. Brad needs to come down from city hall and start using these parks himself so he understands the issues the community faces.