Keeping up with the community developments on Lansing’s Eastside can be tricky. At the behest of the Allen Neighborhood Center, the community is constantly upgrading and adding services for Eastside residents.
Now the City of Lansing is preparing to construct a $100,000 picnic shelter near the popular hoop house in Hunter Park.
“In the summer the greenhouse is too hot,” says Joan Nelson with the Allen Neighborhood Center. “You have to go outside into 85 degree weather to cool off. But it’s during that season that people are excited to learn about gardening.”
The shelter will provide space for the obvious activities — summer barbeques and birthday parties — and act as an extension to the Allen Neighborhood Center’s commitment to sustainable living. During the summer, gardening courses will be moved out of the greenhouse and into the shelter.
“We’re putting it out to bid,” Nelson says. “As soon as the ground is soft enough, we will put it in.”
The shelter will also include grills and painted chess tables. Nelson says there’s some chatter about using the outdoor shelter as a neighborhood movie theater in the summer.
The shelter is the last of the big ticket items laid out in the 2004 Hunter Park master plan, which included adding paths, a green house and benches.
Source: Joan Nelson, Allen Neighborhood Center
Ivy Hughes is the managing editor of Capital Gains and can be reached here.
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