Explore the Recent Improvements at These Detroit Parks You May Not Know About

Summer is here, which means more people are going to be spending time outdoors in backyards and parks. There are more than 250 parks in the City of Detroit. And many of them have recently been renovated.

“Under the current administration, Mayor Duggan’s leadership, we’ve invested multi millions into the park system,” says Brad Dick, the Group Executive of Services and Infrastructure for the city. “Last year, completed or ongoing, we had over 58 park renovations.”

Dick spoke with WDET’s Laura Herberg about some recent park upgrades, just in time for summer. See his short list of recommended parks to check out below.

Listen: Brad Dick talks about the park renovations and worker shortages in the City of Detroit.

Laura Herberg/WDET

Riverside Park

Riverside Park is a 29-acre park located on the Riverwalk at West Grand Boulevard just west of the Ambassador Bridge. It boasts the largest dog park in the city and a 20,000-square-foot skate park. There’s also a boat launch, a softball diamond and a horse shoe and table tennis area.

Scripps Park

Scripps Park is a neighborhood park located at the corner of Grand River Avenue and Trumbull in Woodbridge. The quaint park is surrounded with a wrought-iron fence and is landscaped with perennial plantings and a rose garden. Dick says the park hosts a series of summer events. View the schedule here. 

Palmer Park

Palmer Park is 296-acre park located at the corner of Six Mile and Woodward Avenue. The park features wooded walking trails, a duck pond, a playground area, police horse stables, hand ball courts, basketball courts and tennis courts. Dick says the park received a new picnic shelter and its tennis courts were also recently renovated. He says the duck pond is being cleaned up.

Chandler Park

Chandler Park is a 201-acre park located south of I-94 between Conner Street and Dickerson Avenue. The park includes a golf course, a football/soccer and lacrosse field, tennis courts, outdoor fitness equipment and more. Dick says the Chandler Park Conservancy recently added a walking loop and completed renovations on a marsh area.

Patton Park

Patton Park is a 93-acre park located on the Detroit-Dearborn border (actually a portion of the park is technically inside Dearborn) that contains a large recreation center, soccer fields, a playground area and a pond. Dick says every weekend a few thousand people flock to the park to play and watch soccer.

People feel very attached to their neighborhood parks, Dick says, but with 250 parks there’s more to explore beyond the well-known spots like Rouge Park and Belle Isle.

“A lot of people don’t realize there’s parks like Viola Liuzzo, Luce-St. Louis and Scripps Park, which are great little neighborhood parks that people go to and frequent,” he says. “That’s where the local neighbors and kids go to play.”