City Center Park Complements Downtown Growth

Jeanne and Sean at work in City Center Park
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The energy in Downtown Lakewood continues to build. Partnerships, collaboration, and volunteer efforts can be credited with the most recent success story: a two-week beautification of City Center Park opposite Rozi’s Wine House on Detroit Avenue. LakewoodAlive volunteers Jeanne Mackay and Sean McGuan spent many hours over a two-week period beautifying the park following a plan that resulted from a collaboration with the City of Lakewood and the Coral Company, owners of Lakewood City Center.

Jeanne and Sean, members of the LakewoodAlive Downtown Lakewood Design Committee, showed an interest many months ago to improve the park atmosphere. Starting in the dead of winter, efforts began to solidify a plan to enhance and improve City Center Park incrementally. Through a combined effort led by Lakewood Director of Planning and Development Dru Siley, discussions and planning sessions were held with Public Works, LakewoodAlive, and Keep Lakewood Beautiful. By early summer, a plan was solidified to re-landscape the park utilizing funds donated by the Coral Group.

Through the Coral Group’s generous donation, plants were purchased from Lakewood Garden Center, while the city provided the mulch. The city performed the removal of dead and obsolete plantings, while Jeanne and Sean labored to prepare the beds and install the newly purchased plantings. Additionally, the City Parks Department saw to it that the existing irrigation system was once again made operational. It truly was a collective effort with all work complete in time for the Arts Festival. It is through these unique partnerships and collective efforts that incremental positive changes continue to improve our city.