Belle Isle State Park is one of my favorite places, and judging from so many listener comments over the years, one of yours, too. 

So when I had the opportunity to talk to Dr. Meagan Elliot, the head of the non-profit Belle Isle Conservancy that helps support the island, I knew I had to take it.

I have a long history with the island, going all the way back to when I was a kid riding the 25 Jefferson bus to the Belle Isle line to sail model boats with my parents in the 80s.

We talk all things about the island. From work on the Scott Fountain to the boathouse to the nature areas to the old zoo to a super interesting plan to add more walkability to the island’s most popular areas — and more.

You'll find a full transcription below.

Feedback as always, dailydetroit - at - gmail - dot com or leave a voicemail 313-789-3211.

Transcription

(Please double check the original audio before quoting this transcript that was automatically generated and lightly edited)

Jer Staes: Joining me here at the table at the Grand Hotel at the Mackinac Policy Conference is Meagan Elliott, President and CEO of the Belle Isle Conservancy. Belle Isle is one of the most favorite places to my heart. I am moving to the Island View neighborhood. It’s named because it has an island view and not for all the Coney Islands you can view in it.

Meagan Elliott: Right!

Jer Staes: I am from the east side. Belle Isle is a place that I would take the 25 Jefferson to as a kid and hop on the Belle Isle bus and go sail model boats with my dad. I've been going to Belle Isle for 40 years. I've seen a lot of changes. I'm very passionate about it. I know a lot of our listeners are very passionate about it. Meagan Elliott, you've been there about a year now as head of the Conservancy, right?

Meagan Elliott: That's right. I'm rounding out my first year in the role.

Exciting to see you. For people who don't know, where does a Conservancy sit in relation to the DNR? Because, you know, Belle Isle is a state park.

Meagan Elliott: Belle Isle is owned by the city of Detroit and managed by the state. What the Conservancy does is we're the nonprofit arm that advocates on behalf of the island in partnership with residents to make sure that we're doing all the best things that we can for the island. Whether that's fundraising to fill gaps that we might not have on the public side, whether it's doing volunteer coordination, we also run and operate the aquarium, which a lot of folks don't know. So we are the partner that does all of those efforts on the island. One of the things that we also do is we do a lot of community engagement and planning work to help understand what folks want to prioritize moving forward.

Since you include the aquarium, no matter how good and how well you run things, there will always be something fishy.

Meagan Elliott: There we go! I was waiting for that pun. The aquarium even on, most of the days of this spring have been horribly rainy and cold. Still, everyday that we're open, 2,000 people line up outside that building and wait to get inside. It is such a beloved institution on the island.

For sure. You've got the aquarium, you have the Anna Scripps Whitcomb Conservatory, which has been recently redone. Right next to that, 100 yards away, you've got the Oudolf Garden, which I scream from the rooftops for people of how amazing this amenity is and the artistry to it. To have somebody who designed the High Line, and the Lurie Garden in Chicago, it's like this 1, 2, 3 punch, right in a row, of so many great amenities on the island. It's really a great asset.

Meagan Elliott: It is an incredible asset, and to have it right next to the conservatory too. You have your indoor experience. You have the formal gardens, and then you have these beautiful lush landscapes with the Oudolf Garden. They're all slightly different, and it's a perfect row of assets to have right next to each other.

Meagan, why did you decide to hop into this role? Belle Isle, there's a lot of opportunities, but there's a lot of challenges, a lot of work to be done. What called you to do this role?

Meagan Elliott: I love when there's a lot of work to do. I worked for the Duggan administration for the last 10 years. When I started in that role as the Chief Parks Planner for the city, that was in 2014, and that was right when the state took over managing Belle Isle. As a result of that management deal, we were able to take the funds that the city had been investing in the island, and in some really big infrastructure projects that you really couldn't see on the surface in the day to day, we took all of that and we invested it in our city wide park system. We have over 300 parks around the city, and we had this initiative of trying to get every resident to get to their park within a 10 minute walk of their front door. For a lot of the parks in our system, there were lots of years of disinvestment. We had to get on top of managing those parks and maintaining them, cutting the grass, getting that on schedule, and then also making capital improvements. A lot of those parks hadn't seen investment in 30 plus years. We were able to take the funds that were being invested in Belle Isle and turn those around into the rest of the city. I feel like those things strengthened each other and we've continued to grow as a region, and be this premiere parks destination. We have an incredible riverfront, we have an incredible Metro Park system. Belle Isle is the epicenter of all of that. It is the most iconic public space. It's the space where when you close your eyes and think about your city, it's one of the things you think about. You imagine the dome, you imagine sunset point. It is everyone's backyard, and it hadn't seen the investment that I thought it deserved in a very long time. That's been the challenge of the role that I've been excited to take on.

That piece about the parks investment. I think that's missed in the public conversation. I was aware of it, because when you're in the, when you're watching the machinery closely, you can see how the gears fit together. I think a lot of the public didn't realize how that was a brilliant move to allow for many more improvements. You can see the parks around the city, they're just so much better, materially better, than where they were. I was over at Palmer Park. There's a new dog park! There's this, and new that! And the band Francis Restoration, all of that. It's great to see. Let's run down a bunch of stuff. Lately in the news was the Scott fountain. It's going to be on pause for a little while, but it's needed work, right?

Meagan Elliott: For a very long time, it's needed investment. We've utilized $6 million from the American Rescue Plan Act funds that went to the state. The MDNR is managing that project, and they're going to be restoring the basin of the fountain. It will be shut down this summer and next summer, but the project has to be complete by the end of 2026, per the regulation of those funds. Everyone can count on that next summer or spring, turning it back on. I think everyone will be really, really excited because it's such a beloved destination.

For years that thing's leaked. For years. I remember working the Grand Prix when I did corporate communications, and it was like, "We're going to turn it on for a few weeks." It's been a mess for a while.

Meagan Elliott: It's definitely needed this. The state had worked so hard to get it turned back on in the first place that to then have to turn it off to do the investment is tough, but you got to do it if you want to take care of it for the next 100 years.

If people want the Heart Plaza fountain is back. So, there's that.

Meagan Elliott: They'll go there. Two years come back! Perfect.

You've also been working on some major rethinks of certain areas of the island. When you go back in time and you look at the old pictures of the island, you wonder how so many people fit on Belle Isle. One of the ways they did was not everybody drove a car. Not everybody used the car to get to every single thing. There are elements, of course, we're in the modern era now, but there's elements of I see new bike tracks. I see plans for more pedestrian walkways. Can we talk about that a little bit?

Meagan Elliott: I'm so excited about this. We have, you're right, we have the Ralph C. Wilson Trail that goes on the full perimeter of the island. That's going to be wrapping up construction at the end of this summer season. It's almost fully complete. We have this mobility study that we did over the last two years where folks told us they wanted to get out of their cars, they wanted to use the island differently. Listening to that and then seeing how the island works, we've got more bike paths going in, more interior roads that we're turning into pedestrian roadways. We've got the bus stop that comes right onto the island, as you mentioned taking the bus when you were younger, and that stops at Shelter 7 right in front of the Aquarium Conservatory. You also mentioned at the top of our conversation, how close these garden assets are, of the conservatory, the gardens, and then the Oudolf Garden. 61% of Detroiters, when they go to the island, their number one destination is that space right there.

Really?

Meagan Elliott: To the conservatory and aquarium. And that was a real learning moment for everyone. I think we see it everyday when we're operating those spaces. We see people come out in droves. The experience is, you go over the bridge, you park in front of the building, you go into those two spaces, then you get back in your car and you leave the island. If we want to change patterns of behavior and recognize what a world class asset Belle Isle already is and make it stronger, there are ways that we can connect the landscape in front of there. We're talking about something called the Belle Isle Commons, which is the idea for a public plaza. Rather than a parking lot in front of those two buildings, turn it into a flexible, programmable space that can then support all of the different needs that we have on the island, can be this primary destination, like your starting point for your island adventure for the day, but that you can comfortably drift or just walk between the Oudolf Garden, the Dowson is right across the bridge on Inselruhe. You can walk to the Giant Slide. All of those things feel spread apart right now. They feel far apart on the island. They're actually super close together. It's because we're so used to getting in our cars to go to each different spot. So, that's something we're working on right now that's been a lot of fun and I think we're hitting a nerve in a good way with folks. I've gotten so much outreach since we started talking about this from people that wanted to see it happen, that are excited to weigh in on the next steps.

There's so many pieces of Belle Isle, that you could take a corner and just focus on that and then build that up and then go to the next. People forget the size of this thing. Belle Isle is not small in any way, shape, or form.

Meagan Elliott: It's 982 acres. The best corollary I always tell folks from out of town is that we're bigger than Central Park, and we're on an island. You're right, we've got the natural area where the zoo operates the Belle Isle Nature Center and we have the wet mesic forest. This is kind of the active zone where you have most of the institutional spaces, and it's like the beach on the north side all the way down to the Dowson on the south side. Then you have the formal sunset point area with the Scott fountain.

A number of listeners have noticed a bunch of work happening with bridges and things along the the canals there into the more nature area. Talk a little bit about what's going on. I know there's been hydrological work or water work. I kayaked the island pre-pandemic. It was still of the water in there. It's a very different vibe going on right now.

Meagan Elliott: The water levels are still surprisingly low. With climate change being less predictable, we have these areas when it's like a surge, and then times when it's a lot lower, and the pump that helps to move the water can't even pull from it because it's too low. There's been a ton of hydrological work carried out by the state to make that happen. We've been working with some of our partners to remove fallen trees in certain areas of the canals so that they are more navigable. The canals are such a unique space for the whole region. Right now they function as a backyard, back of house type space. People don't realize how close they are to all these assets. We want to draw more people to using the canals, to feel like they can engage with the water differently, that they can go for a kayak in a safer interior space rather than out on the Detroit River, which can be more intimidating to folks.

It's quite a current out there. The old zoo, the old children's zoo. I have a lot of memories of it, but I know it's been a lot of years. Thoughts around what might happen over there with that space?

Meagan Elliott: There's been some studies over the years. I know that the current plans with our partners in MDNR, are not to reopen a zoo in that space. I get questions about this every day, but I do want to highlight that the Belle Isle Nature Center is operated by the Detroit Zoo and it's a phenomenal space with a ton of programming, and they're doing incredible work over there. That's our zoo of today. For the space itself, it's right in that heart of it's close to the beach, it's close to the athletic field, it's close to everything in the center. We're working on a plan. We're going to have to demo a lot of the structures, but I think that there's a way we can hold on to those materials and honor the history that is so beloved for folks in a special way.

They don't design things like that anymore. That's not how they do zoos anymore. When you look at Belle Isle and what you're seeing over the next few years, what are you most excited about?

Meagan Elliott: Giving people the opportunity to engage with the space in a way they didn't expect to when they came to the island. I talked about this common's concept and being able to drift between these assets. To me, the beauty of parks, and why I'm in the parks world to begin with. They're democratic spaces where you encounter difference, and that's an important part of life. I love the opportunity to create spaces where you can hear different languages being spoken, where you can walk over to a museum space that you didn't intend to go to when you started your day. You can engage with people in a different way, and it's for me the place that's not your home life or your work life. The space where you meet people out in the community is critical. Now that more and more folks are working on Zoom, people talk about that concept of third place. First and second place are now one and the same. Puts even more pressure on those types of places to serve the public differently and find ways to connect and find meaning in the world.

I was thinking about the need for third places and for a lot of people of any level of means. Whether you've got money or not. I think the idea of a place that is cheap to free. I guess you have to get a pass, but it lasts for the whole year, it's not expensive. The idea of a free place or a cheap place where you can go and have a third place and connect with community is so important. I hear that all the time, where can I go where it's like, "I don't have to pay every hour to go do it?" You can go be part of that. I have a couple other like place questions, and this is just humoring me. I'm sorry. There's that giant paddock area over by the casino. Are there any thoughts about that now that the Grand Prix is gone?

Meagan Elliott: Out of that mobility study, the plan was to remove the paddock eventually. A full removal. There's a drainage charge that the state pays to the city every year, and it's a big area. It does get utilized still for events, but there's tons of huge events that happen on Belle Isle every year. We'll have to figure out how to accommodate those differently moving forward. But that is the plan out of the multimodal study.

You could do something maybe with permeable pavement or different designs, it's more green than at the time when it was put in there for race cars and stuff. You had to have a different kind. You couldn't do a permeable surface.

Meagan Elliott: Even Penske has continued to be a partner now that they're even off the island and doing the race downtown, in helping us figure out what the environmental impact looks like. There's a lot of folks that are excited about figuring out that sustainable future for the island together.

Anything to share about the boathouse?

Meagan Elliott: Right now that's still under deliberation with the state to figure out how to move that forward. Out of the RFP process, there were three folks that participated in that and gave ideas for proposals. There was only one that met the criteria that the state laid out that it would be publicly accessible and support the uses of the island and also not be overnight.

The state had a requirement where we couldn't do a hotel?

Meagan Elliott: Exactly. Out of that, there was one proposal that was about turning it into an event space with a couple different food options and then boat slips. They're working out the next step of that, figuring out the lease agreement. To get the financing to be able to do that project, you need to demonstrate site control. Right now the state has 18 years left on their initial agreement. We have to work with our city partners to make sure that we can broker that long term so that they can do that project.

You seem very excited about everything happening on the island. What is the thing that, maybe it's nerdy or in the corner, or something people haven't seen? What is the thing that you personally are most excited about with the island either this year or looking into the future that maybe people haven't thought about?

Meagan Elliott: There's this one bridge. You said I could be nerdy. The whole of the island, there's bridges everywhere because it crisscrosses over the canals. There's this one bridge that's nestled between Kids Row and the athletic shelter. I talk about this bridge so much that folks at the state have referred to it as Meagan's Bridge. I'm obsessed with it because all these little moments to demonstrate in your mental map, all these spaces are so far apart from each other. The fact that you could walk over this tiny little bridge and be over at the tennis courts by the athletic field, and that the Kids Row is right here, and it's just this little foot bridge going over the canal. I love all of those little light bulb moments of all these spaces are very close together and we can use them differently.

My favorite is the one with all the shields, the red bridge over by the casino. It's got a shield that's got the city of Detroit motto on it. That's where my dad and I used to sail the model boats. There was a little island there and then those cement steps that are over by the casino. That's where we always used to sail the boats. If we weren't sure if it was going to work, we'd go to the circular pond there when we're like, "This is going to break." If it fails, we can take a stick and get it back.

Meagan Elliott: Right.

Meagan Elliott, I appreciate you. If people want to know more or support what you're doing, where can they go?

Meagan Elliott: Go to our website belleisleconservancy.org. We're always posting stuff there. I do want to note that I talked about the Belle Isle Commons concept. This whole summer long we're going to be doing a ton of community engagement both about that process and that design as well as priorities around the island. What do you want to see happen next? So please come out. We're coming to you. We're not asking you to come to the island. We're going out to every neighborhood talking to folks, and we've got a whole calendar of events. When we post that online, please take a look. See if there's one nearby in your neighborhood, and you can come share your thoughts and opinions and all the things you love about Belle Isle with us.

Meagan Elliott from the Belle Isle Conservancy, I appreciate you. Thank you for sharing so much about something I know that so many people love.

Meagan Elliott: Thank you for having me.