Illustration by Tabi Walters
Barbara Gamm watched, worried, as nine trees fell in Scheffler Park near the construction site for Fire Station 4, touted as the city’s first net-zero facility.
“Too many trees have been taken down, and we do not understand why,” she says. “How many trees are they going to take down in the name of sustainability?”
Scheffler Park, on Huron Pkwy. on the southeast end of town, consists of two areas divided by Malletts Creek: the Edgewood side, where a baseball diamond is located, and the Platt/Huron Pkwy. side, which had contained a basketball court but is now filled with construction machinery grumbling among piles of detritus scattered across the backfilled park property.
But there’s a plan behind this temporary disorder. The new 12,000-square-foot fire station, replacing the original at 2415 S. Huron Pkwy., will be built at Huron Pkwy. and Platt Rd., overlapping part of the 5.52-acre park. Its driveway is sited for the location of the basketball court, so they’re building a new one on the Edgewood side.
The fire station project planners held public engagement events and worked with the Parks Commission to relocate the court, a move Ann Arbor fire chief Mike Kennedy says required the removal of nine trees. But, he adds, “the city requires that we replace any trees removed.”
Other elements of this project include updating the stormwater system and clearing Malletts Creek of invasive buckthorn. Kennedy says the work will cost $200,000, “all of which is coming from the [$12.4 million] budget for the fire station.”
Gamm shares that many in her neighborhood fear that “that the current destruction is a prelude to commercial or multifamily development on this land.”
But Kennedy clarifies that “there is no new building happening on Scheffler Park, and it’s not being rezoned or developed.”
“This is all meant to be net positive, a new basketball court, better stormwater, removal of invasive species,” he adds. “We’re really trying to leave this better than we found it.”
It is unfair to say a neighbor is “growsing” about 9 trees being chopped down in our neighborhood park. Scheffler is the only park in walking distance for young children in our neighborhood. We are losing our only park. The largest side across the river is for softball teams- no trees or picnic tables there. Then a small triangle has a play structure. The actually park with grass and trees where we could sit in nature was destroyed. Before construction started, I was told that only the basketball “court” (actually just a hoop) was the only thing that would be touched by the new construction. Then, that entire side of the park was fenced off and all the trees were chopped down. Add me to the growsers. I understand the need for a new station and a better entrance for the trucks, but why lie to the neighbors about not losing the park? The footprint of the building is in the old park, and the parking lot- which could have been placed on the opposite side of the station is paving over the grass. Planding 9 little saplings will not return out green space to us.
I fear a similar fate may be in store for the beautiful sugar maples that line Virginia Park on Fair Street. A recent See Click Fix request asked about whether the sidewalk gap between the portion of Fair St. from Glendale Circle to Virginia Ave. would be addressed. A commenter said they had been told by the City’s engineering office that this would probably be happening in 2027. Not clear to me there would be a way to spare those trees if a sidewalk goes in.