Oakland County outlines $7.2 million redevelopment plan for Red Oaks Park in Madison Heights

Oakland County Parks and Recreation officials on Dec. 9 presented updated design plans and a funding update for Red Oaks Park (formerly Ambassador Park) in Madison Heights, saying recent millage and ARPA funds allow the full project to be built at once.

County planning manager Melissa Pross told the City Council the project budget grew from an initial roughly $3.8 million plan to a full $7,200,000 redevelopment after the county millage passed in November. "As soon as our County Parks and Recreation Millage passed on November 5th ... we asked them if they would please allocate the funding so that we could do the full build out of this park at 1 time and not have to come back. So it is now a $7,200,000 park redevelopment project," Pross said.

The presentation outlined concept renderings and site plans showing an expanded playground area, an "Earthscape" playscape, a smaller circular "talk garden," a porch-style restroom/pavilion building, a larger parking lot with bioswales and roughly 85 additional parking spaces, a remodeled sledding hill with added play features, a hammock garden and a quiet reflection garden with potential artwork and…