One reason I am so happy to be raising my kids in the Ann Arbor area is that we constantly stumble over new, super-cool places to take them. It happened again this weekend as we drove to a birthday party at the Ice Cube and my daughter, looking out the window at a traffic light, asked, “Daddy, what’s that?”

It was four-acre Grewal Park straddling the corner of Oak Valley Dr. and W. Waters Rd., just west of the I-94 exit at Ann Arbor-Saline Rd. – a spanking-new Pittsfield Twp. facility with some of the coolest and most interesting playground equipment we’ve seen. There’s a zipline, a very intricate and tall climbing rope structure, and these pretty cool spinning chairs. We spent an hour there after the party and plan to head back when the weather warms up again.

I have one concern: Parking. There is none. The townhome communities that neighbor Grewal are (understandably) unwelcoming for nonresidents, so everyone parks on Silver Spring Dr. and makes a perilous jaunt across the busy four-lane Oak Valley. There are no stop signs or lights except at the corner with Waters. Even if the theory is that a neighborhood park is not for Superior Twp. interlopers who burn fossil fuels to partake, the residents across Oak Valley face the same danger. I hope Pittsfield officials address this.

Your news is here. Council passed the comprehensive land use plan, March Madness and a measles outbreak are upon us, Michael Phelps is getting another prestigious honor, redevelopers of a decrepit “historic” home keep getting stymied, and AAPD and U-M think they can keep folks from smoking weed at Hash Bash.

This is last week’s most-clicked link.

– Steve Friess, editor

P.S. Hey everyone! Editor in chief Brooke Black here. My next Coffee With Brooke will be at the Arbor Farms Market café from 5–7 p.m. on Thursday, March 26. As always, these events are a chance for readers to share their ideas and opinions with me. I want to know what YOU think the Observer does well, what it could do better, and what its readers feel it should be covering. See you there!

Ann Arbor aims for the skies: The long-gestating, oft-controversial Comprehensive Land Use Plan sailed through its final passage by a unanimous council, officially charting a course for more residential density and vertical development. As MLive’s ace development reporter Ryan Stanton writes, the 11–0 vote means “more condo and apartment buildings of various sizes – in some cases with ground-floor commercial spaces – may line mixed-use corridors like Packard Street outside of downtown, while three-story duplexes and triplexes may gradually replace single-family homes in low-rise residential areas.” The resounding decision came after hours of public debate in which various factions reiterated their cases, which you can revisit in Charlotte Trumble’s piece in the Observer last November. Mayor Christopher Taylor took a social-media victory lap, predicting that CLUP’s approval “will lead to a more affordable, sustainable, and equitable Ann Arbor.” The plan, however, is a framework; the planning commission still has to write new zoning statutes. Regardless, council wasted no time putting its imprimatur behind yet another high-rise, approving up to $35 million in bonds for a twenty-story, 330-unit complex of affordable apartments and ground-floor retail.

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Courtesy: AAPS

Pioneer High’s boys swimming and diving team (above) are state champs.

Speaking of swimming, U-M regents approved honorary degrees to be bestowed at spring commencement upon Nobel-winning human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi, cochlear implant pioneer Ingeborg Hochmair-Desoyer, former regent and philanthropist Ronald Weiser, former U-M and NBA player Jalen Rose, and some Olympian named Michael Phelps. Rose is slated to give the main commencement address.

Also at yesterday’s meeting, regents approved a free lease of 1.15 acres adjacent to the existing Ronald McDonald House for a planned expansion and $8.6 million to rehab the pedestrian tunnel at E. Huron St. and Zina Pitcher Pl.

Oh, and just because the hullabaloo over data centers has quieted down lately doesn’t mean nothing is happening. Despite a U-M spokesperson’s hedging, this sure sounds like that Ypsilanti Twp. facility with Los Alamos National Laboratory is happening.

The Michigan Daily has profiled the three Democratic and two Republican candidates vying for two seats on the Board of Regents. Those seats are held by Democrats Jordan Acker and Paul Brown, both of whom are running again.

An autopsy confirmed that U-M sophomore Lucas Mattson died from hypothermia after leaving a fraternity party in January. His blood alcohol content was either 0.156 percent or 0.199 percent depending on the reading. The medical examiner ruled his death an accident.

Want a free pawpaw tree? Or some other native Michigan sapling? Register here starting tomorrow and pick it up in April.

A sleep expert told the AAPS board that its current high school start times are unhealthily too early for teenagers. They doesn’t sound like much fun for their parents, either!

The Washtenaw County Commission has rebuffed the Downtown Development Authority in its quest to expand its borders.

The U-M men’s nationally top-ranked ice hockey team tomorrow hopes to do what the basketball teams couldn’t: win the Big Ten tournament. To make the potential victory more delicious, they’ll play at home against Ohio State.

Marking six years since the onset of Covid in the U.S., Michigan Medicine unveiled a statue honoring health care workers who risked their lives throughout the crisis.

There’s a decrepit pre–Civil War house that’s been blighted and empty for many years, but folks trying to rescue it keep running into roadblocks from the city’s Historic District Commission.

Recycle Ann Arbor is adding Fridays for dropoffs starting April 3.

The fascinating work of restoring an abandoned Black cemetery in Ypsilanti Twp. and identifying those at rest there is being helped along by some pretty cool technology.

A 100-room, four-story extended-stay Hilton is proposed for behind the Starbucks at Glencoe Crossing.

The city is renaming Hansen Nature Area because it turns out the Hansen family deliberately put racially exclusive covenants on their property. They’re also looking for a name for brand-new Dexter Avenue Park; you’ve got until Wednesday to suggest a (hopefully!) non-problematic honoree.

Here’s hoping AAPD and U-M bring a really, really big paddy wagon if they’re seriously going to try to stop marijuana use at Hash Bash. The party on that bus sounds fun, actually.