Open M Park
In 2018, Art x Love’s @PLAY team explored and mapped Akron’s Summit Lake neighborhood, interviewed hundreds of residents, and identified potential areas for investment to improve people’s quality of life. Over the next several months, our team worked with residents, community organizations, and volunteers to transform key neighborhood corridors into vibrant spaces that positively contribute to resident’s vision and aspirations for the community.
Open M Park was identified as a key area of need because of its historic role as a gathering place for neighborhood barbecues, close proximity to the Summit Lake Community Center, recent neglect and state of disrepair. Nearby Lakeshore Boulevard was perceived by many as a “dangerous” thoroughfare with “speeding traffic” that residents would “not let their children cross unsupervised.”
The @PLAY team collaborated with residents to reimagine Open M Park as an all-ages recreation and gathering space. We researched similar spaces across the community and took inspiration from Summit Metro Parks’ parcours trails.
Before proceeding with any of our ideas, we also reached out to the property owners for permission to make improvements. We learned that Open M Park was no longer the property of the City of Akron, and had been given to Akron Public Schools as part of a land swap that gave APS access to the large storage building behind the park. In the exchange, no terms had been set for maintaining the park, resulting in several years of neglect. Realizing this, the City of Akron and Akron Public Schools both agreed to collaborate with us on this project.
In the summer of 2018, Art x Love partnered with First Serve on a series of creative interventions in Akron’s North Hill and Summit Lake neighborhoods. We developed, coordinated, and led more than 50 projects including managing volunteers, materials, and production. Given the scale of resident’s desired placemaking transformation at Open M Park and the number of volunteers available through First Serve, this proved to be the perfect opportunity to make a big change. On this special day of service we worked with neighborhood residents, First Serve, Akron Public Schools, and the City of Akron to:
Resurface the basketball court
Add picnic tables and benches
Cut a 1/3 mile recreation trail through the park
Rebuilt the hillside stairs to the basketball court
Pick up litter and remove dead branches and tree limbs
Pour concrete pads for court-side seating using up-cycled ballpark benches
Built parcours trail amenities including push-up bars, balance beams, stretching posts, a sit-up station, and more
In the weeks and months that followed, the @PLAY team returned to Open M Park to install custom-painted backboards for the basketball court, paint the concrete pads for the court-side seating, finish building the hillside stairs, and to install signage for the parcours trail.
Each return visit was a proof of concept for us. We found kids playing, adults relaxing, and grandparents walking the loop. This project remains an outstanding example of what is possible when key partners come together for a day of creative community service.
