Millennium Park Receives "Keep Michigan Beautiful" Award

Millennium Park is an ambitious project to reclaim 1,500 acres of heavily-used land for public recreation. The park encompasses rolling terrain, extensive wetlands, woods and lakes southwest of Grand Rapids, Mich. Wildlife, fish and waterfowl abound. Facilities within the park now include a six-acre beach and splash pad, nearly 20 miles of trails, and other diverse opportunities for recreation.

The Kent County Parks and Recreation Department has been awarded the President's Plaque for the Millennium Park Recreation Core from Keep Michigan Beautiful, Inc. (KMB).

KMB's annual awards program recognizes programs and projects that contribute to clean-up, site restoration, historic preservation and environmental enhancement in Michigan. Millennium Park was formerly a 200-acre gravel pit. It has been transformed into a regional destination serving as many as 10,000 visitors per day. Once all phases are complete Millennium Park will be one of the largest urban parks in the country, more than twice the size of New York City's Central Park.

O'Boyle, Cowell, Blalock & Associates (OCBA) of Kalamazoo led the site design team from preliminary design through construction administration for the recreation core at Millennium Park. OCBA has also designed and constructed a spray park and several phases of trail development for the park. OCBA has provided landscape architecture, urban design, waterfront planning, land planning, and site design services to Kalamazoo, Grand Rapids and communities throughout Michigan for over 46 years.