Drive past Macomb Township Hall on Broughton Road this fall and you'll find a stretch of bare lawn wrapped in construction fencing, sitting between the Township Hall, the Rec Center, and the Library. If you've been half-following the local news since spring, you've probably seen three or four separate headlines about pieces of this site. Taken together, they describe a single project that is bigger than a splash pad.
What the board actually approved, in order
The story started in April with an equipment order. According to the Macomb Chronicle, on April 8, 2026, the Macomb Township Board of Trustees approved spending just over $314,000 on splash pad hardware from Vortex Aquatic Structures International, the same company that will also handle installation. The purchase came in under the township's $400,000 budget for that piece, and it covers the piping and pump systems that will feed a splash zone built around an existing fountain near Broughton Road, Macomb Street, and Plattsburg Street, right outside Township Hall.
DPW Director Kevin Johnson described the mechanics to the Macomb Chronicle at the time: the system needed piping to feed the splash zone and the fountain, plus a small pump house to hold the equipment. A $982,000 grant from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation is helping cover the broader cost, which matters because it's the kind of state placemaking money that doesn't show up again if a township lets the opportunity pass.
Two weeks later, at its April 22 meeting, the board followed up with the construction side. Trustees approved more than $2 million in contracts to build out what the township is calling Town Square Park. The largest piece went to Anglin Civil, LLC of Livonia, awarded at $1.93 million based on the firm's $1.75 million quote plus a 10 percent contingency, a figure recommended by the township's engineering consultant, OHM Advisors.
| Date | Action | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| April 8, 2026 | Splash pad equipment purchased | $314,201 to Vortex Aquatic Structures International |
| April 22, 2026 | Construction contracts approved | $1.93 million to Anglin Civil, LLC (Livonia), based on OHM Advisors' recommendation |
| July 2026 | Construction begins | Confirmed by the township's own project tracker |
| Spring 2027 | Public opening anticipated | Per the township's Building Macomb update |
Two board meetings, two different vendors, two different budget lines. Read separately, they look like unrelated line items in a long agenda. Read together, they're the same civic square coming together in stages.
The splash pad is the smallest part of what's going in
The township's own project updates, published under an initiative it launched in August 2026 called Building Macomb, lay out the full scope. The square is being renovated to include a splash feature, shade structures, benches, restrooms, changing areas, sidewalks, streetlights, and a seasonal ice rink. That last item is the one most residents haven't heard mentioned alongside the splash pad news, and it's the detail that turns this from a summer amenity into a year-round one. A splash pad draws families for a few warm months. Add a seasonal rink to the same footprint and the same patch of lawn is doing work in January that it was never asked to do before.
That combination isn't accidental. Township Treasurer Leon Drolet told the Macomb Chronicle that a resident survey ranked a water feature as the second most-requested amenity, right behind walking paths. Building both a splash feature and a rink on land the township already owns, next to a Rec Center it already operates, sidesteps the cost that usually kills projects like this. As Drolet put it, it's expensive to build a new park from scratch. Renovating a plaza the township already controls, with a state grant covering a meaningful share of the cost, is a different math problem entirely.
Why this site and not a park somewhere else
Macomb County already has splash pads. Dodge Park in Sterling Heights has one, along with updated playgrounds and river access. Lake St. Clair Metropark has one too. What makes the Town Square project different isn't the water feature itself, it's the location. This one sits inside the walking radius of three buildings residents already visit for other reasons: paying a water bill, checking out a library book, dropping a kid off for a swim lesson at the Rec Center's aquatics facility. A family already headed to the library on a Tuesday afternoon doesn't need to plan a separate outing to use it.
That's also why the fencing showed up where it did. Instead of clearing new acreage, the township is converting a lawn it already had between three buildings it already runs, and doing it on a timeline tied to when that state grant money became available rather than when the township could afford to buy land elsewhere.
What this means for the next two seasons
If you're used to seeing that lawn as a shortcut between the Library and Township Hall parking, expect the fencing to stay up through the fall and winter. The township's own tracker lists construction as starting in July 2026 and lists an anticipated public opening in spring 2027, meaning this is a multi-season build, not a quick install between board meetings.
The project sits inside a bigger pattern of documentation the township only recently started making public. The Building Macomb series, which launched in August 2026, commits to a weekly feature on a different project underway, and Town Square Park was the first one it profiled. The same series has also covered the demolition of the former CVS Pharmacy building at 23 Mile and North Avenue, clearing that site for a new Sheetz location, and an upcoming boardwalk at Paul and Annette Lucido River Park on North Avenue, a 20-acre riverfront parcel the township acquired in 2022, with the purchase price contributed by the Lucido family. None of those are the Town Square project, but they're being tracked through the same public page, which is a useful place to check for the next update.
For now, the practical takeaway is simple. The lawn behind Town Hall isn't just getting a splash pad. It's becoming a plaza built to be used in July and again in January, funded in large part by a state grant that made the reuse of township-owned land the cheaper option, with a contractor already under contract and a completion window that points to spring 2027.
Joan King tracks projects like this because it's the kind of detail that shapes what daily life in Macomb Township actually looks like, long before it shows up in a listing description. If you want to know more about what's changing around a specific corner of the township, or you're weighing what a project like this means for the neighborhood you're already in, reach out to Joan Schinderle King.
