DETROIT (WXYZ) — The community will soon have their first chance to visit Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Centennial Park, a massive new public space west of downtown Detroit along the riverfront that opens to the public later this month.
On Wednesday, we took a tour of the space as it nears completion.
Watch Demetrios Sanders' video report below:
The 22-acre park has been seven years in the making and features four unique sections.
"It's something truly one of a kind, nothing like it in our entire region," said Ryan Sullivan, CEO of the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy. "I think everyone's going to be blown away by what they see here."
The park opens Oct. 25 and includes the Delta Dental Play Garden with slides and a splash pad area, the Huron-Clinton Metroparks Water Garden, the DTE Foundation Summit for events like movie nights or winter activities like sledding and the William Davidson Sport House.
The Sport House represents a partnership with the Pistons, bringing two full-sized basketball courts and a pavilion to the park.
"Some people want to be really active and basketball and others just want to relax and have a picnic or read a book. Everybody can do that in one trip here to the park," Sullivan said.
Beyond providing more outdoor recreation opportunities, Sullivan says the park will help bridge the city together.
"Residents of southwest Detroit, Corktown, Mexicantown will be able to get on the Southwest Greenway and go all the way over to the east side, get onto Belle Isle, go up the Dequindre Cut to Eastern Market," Sullivan said. "We have never had the kind of pedestrian connectivity that we're going to have once this park opens."
Detroiter Donna Lindsey-Law serves on the park's community advisory team and says extensive public input shaped the project.
"We go out here and we did surveys from this end of the town, to the north, to the west, to the east, and we asked people what do you want to see in this park," Lindsey-Law said.
She's proud of the result and its potential impact on future generations.
"Looking through the rear-view mirror at our generation of children that will grow up being proud of their city and what it has in it for them," Lindsey-Law said.
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