After more than four years of planning, the Adado Riverfront Park stage project in downtown Lansing has completed phase one. WKAR’s Katie Cook has more.
The Adado Riverfront Park is situated in downtown Lansing right along the banks of the Grand River, between Saginaw and Shiawassee Streets.
The project plan for the park includes an open-air, covered stage, a path from sidewalks to the river’s edge, a central plaza with a gathering area, audience capacity of up to 15,000.
Debbie Mikula is executive director of the Arts Council of Greater Lansing, one of the key partners in the project. She says they want the project to add more vibrancy to the downtown community.
“It’s 28 acres that was underutilized, it is a very passive park at this point, there’s not a lot of activity in that park unless it is specifically planned for one of the festivals. And I think we really looked at how do we activate it, how do we put more programming into place, how can we use this park for cultural activities,” she says.
Public input helped to create a shared vision for the park, thanks to a $40,000 National Endowment for the Arts grant awarded to the City of Lansing in 2016.
The first planning phase is now complete, and next steps include creating a business and operation plan and identifying and raising funds to support the project.
