Garden Designer Wasn’t told about Grand Prix Problems

Michael Betzold is a Detroit free lance writer, a former Free Press reporter and a Deadline Detroit contributor.

By Michael Betzold

On Belle Isle, the controversy over the Grand Prix enters an unforeseen new phase—with a new tourist attraction about to be planted along the racetrack.

Last April, Piet Oudolf, an internationally acclaimed public gardens guru, picked out a 1.5-acre site near the Nancy Brown Carillon to install a new project of native plants. But the area, near the Anna Whitcomb Conservatory, is along a key turn of Roger Penske's Grand Prix track.

No one bothered to explain to Oudolf that there’s a reason Detroit is called the Motor City. Oops.

In a phone interview Thursday from the Netherlands, Oudolf said he was never informed that his proposed garden site is encircled by a backstretch of the racetrack. No one in the DNR, he said, told him that the race set-up and takedown lasts most of the spring and that concrete barriers limit access to much of the west end of the island during that time.

Oudolf says he didn’t know access to the island is curtailed for many weeks. He was under the impression that it would be an issue only on the race weekend itself.

"The garden should be open in the spring," Oudolf said.

Oudolf also said no one told him there were protests of the car race each year.

"I'm not politically aware of what’s happening in Detroit," he said.

He called Detroit "a very energetic city” and said he is overwhelmed by support for his project.

On his Detroit visits last April and again this winter, he dsays, no officials raised any issue about the site. He was surprised to learn of any possible conflict with the Grand Prix.

"It's very strange to have a car race in that park," Oudolf commented. "Perhaps this will make it a stronger issue."

Maura Campbell of the Garden Club of Michigan, who is shepherding the project by collaborating with all the right movers and shakers in the city, isn't concerned about any conflict. She says the DNR, which since February 2014 has leased Belle Isle and runs it as a state park, has promised her that visitors will still have access to the garden during the long setup and takedown period for the race, which in recent years has taken up to 11 weeks.

However, she can’t explain exactly how garden visitors will get past the concrete barriers lining the track.

Ron Olson, DNR parks chief, said that the state has not given the Garden Club any assurances that the race won’t conflict with the garden.

And state officials won’t explain how the garden will be impacted by the race. Keith Creagh, head of the state’s Natural Resources Commission, which oversees the DNR, has personally promised his support for the project.

The DNR and the garden club have signed a memo of understanding approving the project—but in that document there is no mention of the Grand Prix. Asked about it at Thursday's Belle Isle Parks Advisory Committee meeting, Creagh confirmed "there’s a commitment" to the garden, but said the site isn't yet final -- though Oudolf and Campbell believe it is.