Community: City of Royal Oak
Population: 10,000+
What happens when the public leads and government follows? The answer in Royal Oak a “smart park”. A lot along Center Street was being used by the city to store picnic tables for the summer concert series.
To our surprise, the public started using the tables turning the lot into a de facto park. From here, a plan developed turning the lot into a real park. Not any ordinary park – a “smart park” with technology, sustainability and more!
To achieve our goal, we applied for an MEDC “Public Spaces and Community Places” grant which matches funds raised through online crowdfunding. Raising over $100,000 online, with $60,000 matching grant from MEDC, and a $50,000 grant from the Erb Foundation.
Eagle Plaza, the smart park, features repurposed shipping containers, sun sails, bioswales, moguls, a kiosk, cell phone charging stations, bicycle parking, a public piano, WiFi, bistro tables and chairs.
Replicability:
The features of the park would be easy to replicate but our design was very much constrained by the space in question. It is a very small space surrounded by a parking structure, Center Street, the railroad tracks and the backside of businesses on Fourth Street.
The extremely successful crowdfunding effort and MEDC grant is very replicable. At the time, the grant maximum was $100,000. It has since been reduced to $50,000. We had set our target at $60,000 and MEDC only matches up to the target amount. If we had set our target at $100,000 we would have received the full $100,000 grant.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the park development is how it got started. The city didn’t have any plan to put a park in this location until the people had already turned a storage location into a de facto park. Any city can watch for opportunities like this and take advantage of them. Where are residents and visitors using your amenities differently than you had intended? Might that be a good thing? How can you enhance their experience?
Creativity and Originality:
The park owes its very existence to the creativity of the residents and visitors who started using a storage lot as a park. From colorful sun sails to repurposed shipping containers Eagle Plaza is unlike any park in southeast Michigan. Beyond the attractive features, the park serves as an informational hub with technological innovations such as a touch screen informational kiosk and public WiFi available to all visitors.
Community Impact:
Eagle Plaza is a very nice little public gathering space in a busy area of the city’s downtown. It is utilized by families enjoying ice cream from the nearby Golden Cone, adult students taking a break from their work at the Aveda Institute, middle school age students who congregate at the “cool” park because they can use their cell phones there and professionals who need a meeting or lunch spot where they can also enjoy the outdoors.
