Located just 500 feet from City of Chelsea offices and the main thoroughfare of historic downtown, a nearly three-acre site with ties to WWI and WWII is set to advance four key community priorities: expanded green space, walkability, non-motorized connectivity, and inclusive recreation.

But first, let’s back up about 100 years.

Federal Screw Works, formerly Chelsea Screw Works, operated on the lots sandwiched between residential Congdon Street and busy Main Street starting in 1913. In addition to manufacturing parts for automobiles and aeronautics, they contributed to the war effort for both World Wars. In 2006, they closed, and the land sat overgrown and derelict. Environmental remediation costs—around $2 million—kept multiple local developers from turning the brownfield site into anything modern and usable.

What if citizens could come together and control the destiny of the site? Maybe turn it into a big park? A group of community members boldly asked that question in 2021, and by 2022 they had incorporated into a 501(c)(3), the Main Street Park Alliance (MSPA), and gotten serious. The resulting Holmes Family Park is Chelsea’s submission for the 2026 Community Excellence Award.

“One of our board members, Abby Hurst, it was actually her idea to turn it into a park, because then you don’t need a return on investment,” says Joe Ziolkowski, lead developer with MSPA. “You just have to raise the money to build a park, which,” Ziolkowski admits, “is a whole different problem.” They would end up needing and achieving investments exceeding $10 million, with significant grant support for that first hurdle of environmental remediation.

Washtenaw County Brownfields conducted extensive environmental testing, concluding that the site had spot contamination of cutting fluids, a heavy oil. But it wasn’t all bad news. “Once we received the answer that yes, with the proper precautions, it could be made into a park, then we really started going after general funding,” says Ziolkowski. Through the partnership and generosity of Washtenaw County Brownfields and the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE), they received a little over $2 million in environmental grants.

“We took four feet of soil off the entire site. If you piled it up, that would be six stories high—about half the height of the clock tower in our historic downtown,” says Ziolkowski.

Of course, what goes out, must come back in: they needed 31,000 tons of clean soil to create a direct contact barrier between the surface and any possible contamination in deeper soil layers. EGLE’s criteria is two feet of clean soil cap; Chelsea went the extra mile with two extra feet.

The City and MSPA’s streak of winning partnerships continued when they selected a park design company, VIRIDIS Design Group, based on their strong community engagement process. “Right from the very outset, we began doing surveys and focus groups,” chimes Amy Heidloff, an MSPA Board member. An initial open house utilized a dot system, where participants put dots on park features they wanted. As the design matured, a second, larger open house refined the feedback further.

Demographic-specific focus groups were also a piece of the puzzle: neighbors, City partners, senior citizens, area historical groups, local business and other stakeholders, youth, and disability groups.

“During the course of our work with the special needs groups in our community and the wider Washtenaw County, they told us that our special needs students field a bocce ball team in the Special Olympics … but they have nowhere to practice. So, we amended the park design and put in two bocce ball courts,” explains Heidloff.

Surveys were sent to both the middle and high schools in town. New city manager Elle Cole says, “The other need that I have heard over and over is that our teens in Chelsea…they needed a place to hang out… [where] you can be actively playing, but there are also areas where you can sit and…be on your phone or be hanging out with your friends. The kids are really excited.”

The youth aren’t the only ones excited to see the multi-function park take root. Concrete Chelsea, a board shop featuring skateboards, accessories, apparel, and even lessons opened before the skate park has seen its first ollie.

Was this going to be a case of too many cooks in the kitchen, though? The City and MSPA don’t think so—and hopefully the community agrees. The park will include a no-barrier ¼-mile walking loop, bathrooms, a pavilion with soundstage, skatepark, sports courts, climbing structure, universal accessibility, native landscaping, ½-acre of green space, and to top it all off—literally—an acre of mature tree canopy.

The result of more than 500 donors and 1,200 individuals contributing to those surveys and open houses, the entire effort exemplifies community engagement.

“We had marketing people donating their time, website people donating their time. The Chelsea Community Library really chipped in. Everybody just kind of took the piece that they could do and helped move this thing forward. And it was really like a Herculean effort,” says Ziolkowski.

“And people with park planning backgrounds and government funding histories and that kind of thing,” adds Heidloff.

The ribbon cutting on Holmes Family Park is scheduled for August 21, 2026, with a transfer to the City of Chelsea in mid-July.

Says Ziolkowski, “No doubt it will be a bona fide fandango.”

Author

Ariel Ryan

Ariel came to the League with a background in marketing, video and written content, and asking a lot of questions. Throughout her career (so far) in nonprofits, associations, and business, she has never turned down the prompt, “Hey, could you write…?” This has led to professional adventures in corporate communications, content marketing, B2B2C marketing, publication writing, SEO and SEM work, and puns on social media. At the League, she enjoys crafting marketing and communication strategies that get members to the training, events, services, and ideas they need to serve and uplift their communities. Ask her about running at your peril.