Officials to vote on downtown park name

New park scheduled to be completed in fall 2021

Royal Oak leaders are about to decide the local answer to Shakespeare’s famous line: What’s in a name?

The Royal Oak City Commission on Monday will vote on naming the downtown park to be built next year at the site of the existing City Hall and police station.

“Scheduled to be completed in the fall of 2021, the new park will be open just in time to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Nov. 8, 1921 election in which 922 voters approved the adoption of a city charter” for Royal Oak, said Judy Davids, community engagement specialist for the city, in a memo to commissioners.

Royal Oak became a city in 1921 after spending 30 years as an incorporated village.

Davids said the city’s naming committee oversaw the effort to come up with a moniker for the downtown park and it’s clear Royal Oak’s impending century mark was a factor.

The park’s proposed name is Centennial Commons.

Davids said 118 people submitted 73 different names for the park in an online survey. Several of the names sought to honor Royal Oak residents past and present.

The suggested names ran the gamut, from Acorn Arbor and Glenn Frey Park, in honor of the late cofounder of the Eagles, to Kevorkian Plaza — after the man known as Dr. Death for his euthanasia advocacy, Dondero Park, El

lison Hills and, more cynically, Shameful.

Inevitably, the most submitted name was Parky McParkface, a name that has cropped up like a digital virus the past several years during naming efforts for parks as far away as Oklahoma and Colorado.

“Even though that was technically the most popular name in the survey, it’s a joke and nobody on the naming committee wanted to include it,” Davids said. “Clearly, we were asking for reasonable name suggestions.”

The 2.2-acre park design by the MKSK landscape architecture firm has already been approved as an oval shape with some diagonal pathways.

Elements around the perimeter include seating areas with chairs and a splash pad area for children to play in during warmer months.

A large oak tree in front of City Hall will remain and the park and surrounding areas will be softened with a couple of dozen trees and garden plantings.

There will be lighting elements and an area for musicians or other performers.

The park is part of the Royal Oak’s $60 million Civic Center project and will cost about $3 million. Star Dream, the 40-foot-tall sculpture between City Hall and the public library will remain where it is.

However, the Royal Oak Veterans Memorial plaza will be moved about 40 feet to the east and closer to Troy Street.

The park site was a village green area and casual park in the days before Royal Oak became a city. It was removed when City Hall was built in the early 1950s.