'Pocket Parks' Add Green Space To Downtown Rochester

ROCHESTER, MI — A pair of “pocket parks” should be completed in downtown Rochester by about Labor Day. The parks are in direct response to a 2016 community visioning session, where residents asked for additional green space in downtown. Promenade Park is the larger of the two, and will sit at the corner of University Drive and Walnut Street, according to a C & G Newspaper report.

“There are going to be some benches and little places for people to stop and gather and talk. For me, I could even envision people playing checkers or chess sitting out there. It’s a good entryway into our downtown,” Rochester City Manager Blaine Wing said.

“We want to attract people downtown — workers who are downtown, people who are visiting downtown — so that they can stop, sit down, have a bite to eat, read a book or do whatever on their lunch hour or the weekends, if they are shopping,” Rochester Downtown Development Authority Board Chair Mark Albrecht said. “These are going to be little areas where people can hang out, for lack of a better term.”

For more, go to C & G Newspapers.

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Photo of Promenade Park site courtesy of Google Maps