Focus on Public Space
and Environment: Community shapes Stoudamire
Park revitalization project

When Stoudamire Park reopened in 2025, it had been transformed from a grassy field with a few dilapidated picnic tables into a busy community gathering space featuring a walking path, exercise equipment, a playscape, a basketball court, a pavilion and a memorial garden.

The park’s revitalization demonstrates what community, philanthropy and government can accomplish when they work together, and serves as a fitting legacy for its namesake, Marlowe Stoudamire.

Stoudamire was a beloved figure in Detroit, known for his boundless ideas, inclusive leadership, wide smile, effervescent personality and tireless advocacy on behalf of his hometown. He envisioned a thriving Detroit shaped by Detroiters for Detroiters and still welcoming to everyone.

After he passed away from COVID-19 in 2020, leaving behind his wife, Valencia, and their two young children, Stoudamire’s family petitioned to rename Troester-Hayes Park on Detroit’s east side in his memory. The petition received 700 signatures and, in 2023, the City Council approved the request. The renaming was folded into a nearly $1 million collaboration to renovate the park.

Community Foundation invests in collaboration

The Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan contributed $500,000, and the project also received $250,000 from the Gilbert Family Foundation and $150,000 from the City of Detroit. Plans were developed with input from residents, who shared their wishes for the type of park they wanted to see in their community. The project fit neatly under the Community Foundation’s focus area of Public Space and Environment, which invests in parks, trails and climate-smart infrastructure that improve environmental health and quality of life.

“The space honors Marlowe’s vision to create ‘organic social collisions’ within our communities, in a neighborhood his family once called home,” Valencia Stoudamire said during an emotional ribbon-cutting event.

“Marlowe believed in connecting people from all backgrounds to find common good, solve problems and create a positive impact,” she said. “It was important to him that Detroiters tell their own stories and not let others who aren’t from here do it for them.”

‘A safe, accessible space for spending time outdoors’

Community Foundation President and CEO Nicole Sherard-Freeman noted that public spaces are dynamic community assets that can change to meet residents’ evolving needs, if we just listen.

“The transformation and renaming of Stoudamire Park are a prime example,” she said. “Today and into the future, children in this neighborhood will have a safe, accessible space for spending time outdoors — a fitting tribute to Marlowe Stoudamire’s tireless work to make the city he loved a better place.”