Chandler Park on Detroit's east side will undergo a major transformation.
Rochelle Riley of the Detroit Free Press writes that 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 transformation includes new football and soccer fields, tennis courts and the state's first urban conservation school for K-12 students.
Riley reports:
"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."
