In 2020, voters in Calhoun County approved a five-year county-wide parks millage. PEA Group was awarded the five-year contract to provide landscape architecture and civil engineering services for the County. Along with the millage funds, Calhoun County was awarded an MNRTF Grant for improvements to Kimball Pines Park, located in Emmett, Michigan.
Kimball Pines had been an underutilized park since 2011 when straight-line winds came through, downing many trees and rendering the park unusable. Prior to this event, the site served as a popular festival venue, with several large gravel parking lots that were left abandoned and no longer functional. The park also lacked a formal entrance drive, with park access from the rear parking lot of an adjacent medical facility, making it difficult to find.
PEA Group’s new design for the park included removing the existing parking lots and replacing them with a native prairie landscape, developing a formal entrance drive with signage from Michigan Avenue, two new parking areas, restroom renovations, a new section of pathway to create a ¾ mile loop within the park, and restoring the native landscape for the approximately 45-acre area at the northern half of the property. The new design resulted in a dramatic improvement to both the functionality and aesthetics of the park.
The Iron Belle Trail, North Country Trail, and Great Lake to Lake Trail run through the park, serving as a rest stop for cyclists and pedestrians. The site improvements make this park an ideal trailhead for these regional trails.