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Patriarche Park in East Lansing is a 38 acre community park that also serves as a regional park for the area. It has come into city ownership over the course of time, with the original designation as a park being as early as the 1940s. “Over the years the city has received donations of land to expand the park to its current size,” said Wendy Wilmers Longpre, Assistant Director of East Lansing Parks, Recreation & Arts. “It’s located on a main route for many people who are heading to the Michigan State Capitol or to Michigan State University.” The park is home to baseball fields, softball fields, tennis courts, basketball courts, volleyball courts, and a natural area with trees and trails. There is also a pavilion and large playground structure, as well as several smaller pieces of play equipment. “In 1995 there was a community built playground installed. It had really started to show its age and the level of use that it received, so in 2010 we started looking at doing a major renovation to the play structure,” said Wilmers Longpre. “We looked at going through the community build process again because it had been so successful the first time.” As they started the process, they realized that the wood of the playground structure had been treated with a preservative called Chromated Copper Arsenate (CCA). “CCA is a wood preservative that was widely used up until 2004 to treat exterior wood in the United States. One of the primary components of CCA is arsenic, which is a carcinogen in large quantities, so CCA stopped being used in products that came in regular contact with people,” said Wilmers Longpre. “There really wasn’t a lot we could safely do to repair the playground structure. Any time you drill, clean or sand CCA treated wood you risk exposure to arsenic. So we decided that our best course of action was to remove the structure completely.” They did not have the funds to remove it and install another structure, so they received a Department of Natural Resources Trust Fund grant for $300,000, which funded a major portion of the project. The Rotary Club of East Lansing became a principal partner and helped raise funds to match the grant. “The first thing we did was to remove the old structure and dispose of it. That really opened up a large area of the park,” said Wilmers Longpre. “We hired Landscape Architects and Planners, a local landscape architecture firm, to design the new play structure.” They worked with the community to come up with the design by holding several community meetings, and installed the new structure using a community build process as well. They hired a contractor to help with some of the additional work, such as installing accessible walkways, picnic tables, and an entry plaza that has engraved bricks to acknowledge donors. They also installed a rain garden to collect storm water runoff from the park. “The park itself, especially the area around the playground, looks much more inviting and attractive. It looks safe, fun and colorful,” said Wilmers Longpre. “There are a lot of opportunities for kids to play and for adults to watch them as well as interact with them.” There is also an educational component on the playground that consists of signage explaining the rain garden, what it accomplishes, and how it fits within the scheme of the park. “This project has really revitalized Patriarche Park,” said Wilmers Longpre. “The playground is definitely a focal point of the whole park. It was a very exciting project, it brought a lot of people in the community out. It really resulted in a revitalized interest in that park.” To learn more about Patriarche Park visit: www.cityofeastlansing.com Renovation Spotlight EAST LANSING’S PATRIARCHE PARK To have your park or facility renovations featured in a future issue, contact Renee Armstrong, Editor, mParks PROfessional Quarterly, at [email protected]. 6 mParks PROfessional Quarterly Volume 8, Issue 1 2016

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Page 1: EAST LANSING’S PATRIARCHE PARK › ... › RenovationSpotlight_PatriarchePark.pdf · Patriarche Park in East Lansing is a 38 acre community park that also serves as a regional park

Patriarche Park in East Lansing is a 38 acre community park that also serves as a regional park for the area. It has come into city ownership over the course of time, with the original designation as a park being as early as the 1940s.

“Over the years the city has received donations of land to expand the park to its current size,” said Wendy Wilmers Longpre, Assistant Director of East Lansing Parks, Recreation & Arts. “It’s located on a main route for many people who are heading to the Michigan State Capitol or to Michigan State University.”

The park is home to baseball fields, softball fields, tennis courts, basketball courts, volleyball courts, and a natural area with trees and trails. There is also a pavilion and large playground structure, as well as several smaller pieces of play equipment.

“In 1995 there was a community built playground installed. It had really started to show its age and the level of use that it received, so in 2010 we started looking at doing a major renovation to the play structure,” said Wilmers Longpre. “We looked at going through the community build process again because it had been so successful the first time.”

As they started the process, they realized that the wood of the playground structure had been treated with a preservative called Chromated Copper Arsenate (CCA).

“CCA is a wood preservative that was widely used up until 2004 to treat exterior wood in the United States. One of the primary components of CCA is arsenic, which is a carcinogen in large quantities, so CCA stopped being used in products that came in regular contact with people,” said Wilmers Longpre. “There really wasn’t a lot we could safely do to repair the playground structure. Any time you drill, clean or sand CCA treated wood you risk exposure to arsenic. So we decided that our best course of action was to remove the structure completely.”

They did not have the funds to remove it and install another structure, so they received a Department of Natural Resources Trust Fund grant for $300,000, which funded a major portion

of the project. The Rotary Club of East Lansing became a principal partner and helped raise funds to match the grant.

“The first thing we did was to remove the old structure and dispose of it. That really opened up a large area of the park,” said Wilmers Longpre. “We hired Landscape Architects and Planners, a local landscape architecture firm, to design the new play structure.”

They worked with the community to come up with the design by holding several community meetings, and installed the new structure using a community build process as well. They hired a contractor to help with some of the additional work, such as installing accessible walkways, picnic tables, and an entry plaza that has engraved bricks to acknowledge donors. They also installed a rain garden to collect storm water runoff from the park.

“The park itself, especially the area around the playground, looks much more inviting and attractive. It looks safe, fun and color ful,” said Wilmers Longpre. “ There are a lot of opportunities for kids to play and for adults to watch them as well as interact with them.”

There is also an educational component on the playground that consists of signage explaining the rain garden, what it accomplishes, and how it fits within the scheme of the park.

“This project has really revitalized Patriarche Park,” said Wilmers Longpre. “The playground is definitely a focal point of the whole park. It was a very exciting project, it brought a lot of people in the community out. It really resulted in a revitalized interest in that park.”

To learn more about Patriarche Park visit: www.cityofeastlansing.com

Renovation SpotlightEAST LANSING’S PATRIARCHE PARK

To have your park or facility renovations featured in a future issue, contact Renee Armstrong, Editor, mParks PROfessional Quarterly, at [email protected].

6 mParks PROfessional Quarterly • Volume 8, Issue 1 • 2016

Page 2: EAST LANSING’S PATRIARCHE PARK › ... › RenovationSpotlight_PatriarchePark.pdf · Patriarche Park in East Lansing is a 38 acre community park that also serves as a regional park

mParks PROfessional Quarterly • Volume 8, Issue 1 • 2016 7