Sandpoint Beach a waterfront gift that could keep on giving
It’s a little piece of summer heaven in the middle of the city. Sandpoint has all the natural attributes of a standout beach. What it needs are all the little extras, Anne Jarvis writes as part of the #ImagineWindsor series.
The water is a temperate 27 C, clear enough to see the sand on the bottom. To the west, in the Detroit River, is Peche Island, green and lush. To the east is water and sky — Lake St. Clair.
This is Sandpoint Beach, the only natural beach in Windsor, the city with the longest, hottest summers in Canada. Along with Ganatchio Park and Stop 26 Beach — named after the electric streetcar transfer station between Windsor and Tecumseh — it’s 460 metres of lakefront in a manufacturing city. It’s a gift. But we don’t really appreciate it.
There’s a playground, volleyball net and lifeguards. But the first thing you see is the jarring chain link fence. Not even the baskets of flowers hanging from it can dress it up.
“It cheapens it. It degrades it,” Coun. Irek Kusmierczyk said of the fence. He has been trying to get chain link fences removed from the entire riverfront.
“You’ve got this beautiful asset. Why make it look industrial?” he asked.
The grass is sparse and patchy. The only other plants are weeds — in the planters, next to the dated building with the lifeguards’ office and washrooms and between the paving stones. The paint on the benches is peeling. You can’t buy lemonade or hotdogs; the concession stand is closed.
“Nothing has changed there in years,” said Phany Surakinis, owner of Stop 26 Ice Cream across the street. That sums it up. “It’s the only beach in the city, but there’s nothing really to draw you here,” said Chris Tassey, there with his six-year-old son Alex last week. That sums it up, too. “What can we do about Sandpoint?” Kusmierczyk’s constituents ask him regularly.
Phil Roberts, the city’s parks director, has a “rather lofty recommendation.” He wants to designate Sandpoint a Blue Flag Beach. It’s an internationally recognized and respected designation awarded to beaches and marinas that meet strict criteria for water quality, environmental management and education, safety and services. There are only 25 Blue Flag Beaches in Canada, including Bayfield and Grand Bend in Southwestern
Ontario. Can a city like Windsor achieve this? Sarnia did: Canatara Park Beach.
Roberts envisions landscaping with native grasses and cattails. He’d like new washrooms.
“Those are the kind of things Sandpoint deserves,” he said.
But his vision is more than just a premier beach. With its natural shoreline at the headwaters of the river, Sandpoint can act like a nursery to repopulate the river with native species, he said. Native mussels with cool names like heelsplitters have been almost wiped out by invasive zebra mussels. If a population could be re-established near Sandpoint, the current would carry it downstream to the rest of the river.
“We want to make sure the beach functions not only for our recreation but ecologically as well,” he said.
Despite periodic high bacteria, which can prevent swimming at Sandpoint, water quality in the Detroit River has improved significantly, Roberts said. Species like sturgeon and whitefish are returning. Governments and environmental organizations have eliminated some of the sources of pollution and done extensive remediation.
“The ugly polluted Detroit River — hopefully we’re going to get over that stigma,” Roberts said.
He called the Blue Flag Beach designation, one of 13 key recommendations in the new parks master plan, a “rather lofty recommendation.” But, he said, “we think it’s both a driver for redevelopment of Sandpoint and perhaps even ultimately the attraction for people to come to Sandpoint.”
But a $5-million plan to move the beach further east, away from the steep drop-off and strong current near the shipping channel, and to refurbish it has never drawn much interest from city council. It has languished in the capital budget plan for three years without funding. It was removed from the five-year plan last year.
“We’ve got something amazing at Sandpoint,” said Kusmierczyk, “and we just haven’t taken advantage of it. We could do so much more with it.”
He cited Sugar Beach on Lake Ontario in Toronto. It was a parking lot. It’s across from a sugar refinery. You can’t even swim there. But it has been transformed into a white sand beach with big pink umbrellas, white Muskoka chairs and dozens of fountains that light up at night. There’s also a plaza for events and a tree-lined promenade.
“It’s like a postcard,” said Kusmierczyk. “It blows me away.”
And it’s popular. You can sit and watch the freighters, just like at Sandpoint.
“When you improve the quality of life in your city,” Ontario Minister of Economic Development Brad Duguid said at the opening in 2010, “you attract investment and interest in the city. Businesses want to locate in vibrant locations.”
We have not only the river, lake, Sandpoint and Stop 26 beaches and Ganatchio Park, we have the Ganatchio Trail across the street and a kayaking business, ice cream store and farmers’ market all nearby. We’ve got all the pieces.
“It’s about bringing them all together,” said Kusmierczyk. “It’s about making it pop.”
More than 30,000 people a year use Sandpoint, according to a city report in 2013.
When officials asked residents what they want in their parks, they said they want more access to the water.
“Like the return of sturgeon and whitefish, people are returning to the Detroit River,” said Roberts.
“It feels like you’re on vacation,” said Linda Maskell, who stopped at Sandpoint last week to cool off while riding her bike.
Shastina Barlow and James Pillon rented a kayak and saw some swans.
“It’s nice that you can enjoy an afternoon on the water,” Barlow said.
A lot of people had suggestions: a pavilion for shade, native gardens, murals and sculptures, even simple things like paint and a place to put cigarette butts.
“We live in the city. We’re lucky to be this close to water and to have an urban beach,” said Clay Dell, who was there with his 11-year-old daughter Brooklyn. “It’s a pretty nice area.”