MyWHaT

Park Portrait: Fulton Park

One of our most intentional parks and one that many of us don’t know about. Fulton Park is located along the TART Trail, complete with its own trail entrance, as well with access from Carter Road towards Greilickville. The interpretive trail guides visitors through a cedar swamp and has an open grass area that serves as a quiet place for a quiet lunch or family picnic. The approximately 9-acre park has been historically known as prime birding habitat.

For larger images of Fulton Park, visit the MyWHaT Flickr page.

Who has spent some time in Fulton Park? Not just passed it, but actually walked it and enjoyed it.

For a map of all 34 city parks, pick-up a map at the government center or download one from the MyWHaT Scribed site.

• Reminder: Tomorrow morning’s observation walk of Division St. is at 8am, beginning at Veteran’s Park at the north end of Division St; the park with the tennis courts. We will walk the corridor together and keep notes of what we see. It should take an hour to and hour-half, with plenty of opportunity to cut out early if need be. Higher Grounds coffee will be served.

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I’m a little behind on this, but it needs to be noted that July is National Park and Recreation Month! I intended to run images & descriptions of Traverse City’s parks during the entire month. I’ll start that with today’s second post, but first I wanted to answer the question, where are all of our city parks?

New: TC Parkland map

Hull Park, behind the library & on Boardman Lake is one of 34 city owned parks.

A long-term project for Traverse City’s parks and recreation commission has been to produce an attractive map of our city parkland. This past month it was finally published and is now available at the governmental center (Or, I’ll hand deliver one if you ask, nicely.)

You can also view and download a PDF version at the bottom of this post.

This is all part of making our parks more intentional, relevant and attractive areas. Many cities that have strong tourism economies, invest heavily in their parks & use them to market the city. Beautiful urban parks can drive a portion of the economy by attracting visitors, but can also increase property values.  Charleston, South Carolina is one of the first class models.

Traverse City has some catching up to do and is moving in the right direction with the bay-front plan (PDF) finally being designed, engineered and priced out. The challenge will be how to not solely focus on this one area, but to simultaneously prioritize and develop all of our parkland, including areas along the bay-front that are the least sexy to develop. I’d like to see the city bust out of its funder-driven prioritization process and be more intentional. Identify the good ideas, set dates to get them done by and then figure out how to fund it.

You have an opportunity this year to help guide that process. The parks and recreation commission needs to update its five-year master plan this year. Part of that process involves public input and a schedule is being finalized on when, and how, the commission will gather that feedback. More details soon, but in the meantime:

• What are your favorite TC parks?
• What are some ideas you have for them?
• In addition, we need to boost our public recreational programs. Any ideas?
  

Map-Side I

Park descriptions-Side II

Full Disclosure: I sit on the parks and recreation commission, which is an appointed citizen position that serves & advises the city commission. I also like to take naps in parks.