Juan Bowman and Darron White have been kicking back at Rouge Park — a place they jokingly call “the office” — for at least 30 years.
Bowman, who currently lives in Canton, grew up in the neighborhood and spends every afternoon at the sprawling green space on Detroit’s far west side, in council district 7. It’s the largest public park in the city at nearly 1,200 acres, offering extensive mountain biking and hiking trails, picnic areas, an 18-hole golf course and driving range, as well as a public pool.
He and White, along with several of their friends pull up daily to barbecue (when the weather permits) and mingle, and to keep an eye on the area, ensuring it stays clean and safe. The men say the park provides a great outdoor escape for the community.
But when the weather turns cold, the recreation options tend to dwindle for many of the park regulars.
About seven miles north, in the Grand River/Northwest community in neighboring council district 1, Eric Robinson, 34, runs the Motor City Java House, which is just a mile away from the site where his grandfather used to play golf — the former 18-hole Rogell Golf Course off Berg Road between 7 Mile Road and Grand River Avenue.
“To see it go from basically a staple and recreational thing in the community, to go to what it is now, it’s kind of like, ‘Oh man, that’s crazy,'” Robinson said.
He said he remembers growing up when the site was a “beautiful” golf course that served as a nice community aesthetic.
“Then, over time, when they locked the golf course, it was bad, it was abandoned,” he said, adding that it was a “big, dramatic change” to the community, especially when raccoons and rodents started to appear.
But help is officially on the way. On June 25 and June 26, respectively, city officials are scheduled to break ground on the new $20-million Brennan Recreation Center — funded by Detroit Pistons Owner Tom Gores and The Gores Family Foundation — at Rouge Park, followed by the ribbon cutting for the new 100-acre Rogell Park that also will include an additional 20 acres of a new affordable housing units.
City officials say they expect both projects to significantly improve the quality of life for nearby residents, as well as increase land values and provide more recreational and green space options — all welcome improvements, residents, nearby business owners and patrons say.
The Brennan Recreation Center at Rouge Park — which will be the only rec center in District 7 — will be a 25,000-square-foot facility next to the Brennan Pool featuring multi-use sports courts, community rooms and kitchen spaces for gatherings by next year.
And it will provide a welcome, indoor reprieve for those who like to frequent the park year-round.
Growing up, the park was beautiful, Bowman, 62, said. Though about seven years ago, he and White would have to bring their own garbage bags and brooms to clean up any lingering trash, they said. The two also would leave bottles next to trash bins for anyone who needed an extra dime from the bottle return deposit.
However, they said, some visitors perceived that as an acceptable way to leave their trash on the ground.
White, 61, said: “Now they have the city coming through here,” to take cleanup efforts off their hands.
But the roads and parking lot could be repaved, especially since they collect water with sewers dipping into the ground, White said. Despite some of the deterioration, including inaccessible bathrooms, he said the new recreation center will be “a very great asset” to younger and older populations — in addition to the pool, which remains closed until 2027 while it undergoes renovations.
“I think that’ll be really nice for the kids and the teenagers, you know, give them something to do because there’s a lot of stuff that they can get caught up in the streets,” Bowman said. “We need that over here in this area because there’s nowhere around here with a rec center.”
Justin Player, 28, said it would be particularly beneficial to have community mentors at the center to help keep youth and young adults out of trouble.
“I just hope it helps my age group out; like keep them out of trouble, keep them from getting locked up, or shot, killed. Don’t want to wish that on nobody,” Player said.
Shooting hoops on the new Detroit Pistons-sponsored basketball courts at Rouge Park was 27-year-old Charles Barnett, who grew up in the neighborhood without an indoor rec center, forcing him to find other spaces. He said he frequents the park’s courts now, which weren’t there when he was a child.
“I always felt like a rec center, community center, would be beneficial for the neighborhood. This court, they built it when I left for college so, this is new to me,” Barnett said. “That might’ve been the main thing we talked about growing up, that we need a community center of our own.”
Meanwhile, around the Rogell site, residents and stakeholders say they are looking forward to the creation of a community inside of the community with the Rogell Park development.
Blight Busters founder John George is building at least 300 affordable housing units on nearly 20 acres of the 120-acre site. The city is hosting a ribbon cutting for the new park opening at noon, at 18600 Berg Road, on June 26.
George said the site will have retail in addition to the housing. And, of course, there will be plenty of green space.
“That golf course has seen better days, it’s been neglected for years after the church purchased it, closed it down,” George said. “When we started this work, our goal was to leave the neighborhood in better shape than we found it.”
The Rogell Golf Course opened in the mid-1910s. The city owned it from 1946 until 2007, then sold it for $2.1 million to the nearby Greater Grace Temple of the Apostolic Faith. The church operated the golf course for several years, though officials later said it was not profitable and closed it in 2013.
The church tried to sell the property to a cemetery company in 2014, however, the city’s Board of Zoning Appeals denied the necessary zoning change. The city then bought the golf course back in 2018 for about $2 million, where it sat unused for years.
“But now that it’s becoming something recreational — as far as housing, and a walkway, and a park and everything — I think that’s great and excellent, because we can experience that as neighbors,” Robinson said. “Residents can experience our coffee shop and art gallery, and the things we have to offer on this particular side of town.”
Erma Leaphart, a Great Lakes environmental advocate within a few miles of the site, says she was involved with the Grand River/Northwest Neighborhood Framework Plan advocating for green infrastructure. Initially, she said she was on the fence about the proposed project.
“We have plenty of vacant land in the city for housing development … I have been a proponent of keeping Rogell as green space. But, I also really support what John George and the Blight Busters have done in Northwest Detroit. They’ve done phenomenal work,” she said, adding that some nearby residents were not sold on the affordable housing aspect of the development, fearing it could affect existing property values.
“The developer matters. I feel like If it was a developer coming from out of town, who really had not shown interest in the well-being of the community, I would say, ‘Absolutely not’ because I really do value the green spaces.”
And, she said, she understands that the housing aspect serves a purpose.
“Why shouldn’t people who live in affordable housing have access to a park? How nice is that?” Leaphart said.
Dana Afana is the Detroit city hall reporter for the Free Press. Contact: dafana@freepress.com. Follow her: @DanaAfana.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Northwest Detroit gets long-awaited recreation areas after much demand
Reporting by Dana Afana, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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By Dana Afana, Detroit Free Press | USA TODAY Network
