Rotarians pitch in for stylish park that marks group’s 100th birthday
Windsor’s riverfront will soon have a spiral of style.
The Rotary Club of Windsor (1918) wanted to do something special for its big 100th birthday, so the Rotary Centennial Plaza was born. It will feature trees, landscaping, solar lighting, a canopy, a trellis, a picnic table, a time capsule and swing benches.
“The swings we just found are the coolest things in the world,” said Janet Kelly, the past-president of the Rotary Club of Windsor (1918) who is spearheading the project. “Can you imagine sitting along the waterfront and swinging and watching the boats go by? It’s perfect.”
Designed by City of Windsor landscape architect Stefan Fediuk, the park will cost $395,000, split evenly between Rotary and the city. It will be just west of the Riverfront Festival Plaza, near the old train ferry lifts. The cost includes 10 years’ worth of maintenance funding at $3,500 a year.
The park will also have giant picture frames so visitors can take their photos as if already framed, with the Detroit skyline as a backdrop.
Kelly hopes the new space will draw people to the riverfront.
“It’s going to be a focal point,” she said, adding that out-of-town Rotarians may even come for a look. “We’re hoping this will be a destination place that people will come back to.”
The park will also include signs outlining the history of Rotary and the work it does in the community. Construction should begin in July or August, with final landscaping finished in the spring of 2018.
Rotary International president Ian Riseley is scheduled to attend the opening May 12, 2018, and a Rotary gala that night.
“We’re really excited about the project,” Kelly said. “We want it to be a legacy for our club.”
Kelly said the Rotary Club approached the city about a year and a half ago, wanting to create something to honour the 100th anniversary of the first Rotary Club in Windsor.
“They came back to us and said, ‘Why don’t we develop the waterfront?’ ” Kelly said. “And we said, ‘Wow, OK, that would be great.”
Rotary and the city have been working out details ever since.
Coun. Jo-Anne Gignac summed up the upbeat mood on council Monday night when Fediuk and Kelly presented the proposal to councillors.
“It’s a fabulous project,” Gignac said. “I just want to know when I can go sit there.”