Grant Park Conservancy | HealthPark@GrantPark

Voice Your Support for a HealthPark

in Grant Park, Chicago

The HealthPark committee and the Grant Park Conservancy (GPC) seeks your support to incorporate additional health and wellness features into the overwhelmingly successful Grant Park Skate Park - the most prominent urban skate park in the world. The GPC and the public collaborated to bring the Skate Park to Chicago, which upon its launch demonstrated the massive public desire for urban movement spaces. Now a committee comprised of local residents and the GPC are building upon the groundswell of momentum for outdoor movement spaces by incorporating additional features within the Skate Park area to ensure health, wellness, and movement remain at the core of this outdoor space. These additional HealthPark features will be integrated into the existing Grant Park Skate Park area in the southwest corner of Grant Park (Roosevelt St & Michigan Ave) creating an all-encompassing environment for using movement as a form of preventive medicine in the fight against obesity and chronic disease. The additional HealthPark components will be free and open to the public year-round.

The Grant Park Skate Park, has proven to be a successful placemaking model that works and is in a constant state of evolution. The GPC created a collaborative society from the onset of the Grant Skate Park project. The Public, Skateboarders, BMXers, Artists, and many more were integral community members, participants and stakeholders. The Grant Skate Park grew organically through testing new ideas and monitoring outcomes and the park continues to evolve. The HealthPark will take a similar approach integrating the HealthPark into the Grant Skate Park as part of a healthy living public placemaking model.

SIGN THE HEALTHPARK@GRANTPARK CHANGE.ORG PETITION NOW

What is a "HealthPark"?

A public park that puts health, wellness and education at its center.

An arboretum infused with healthy activities including a wide-variety of exercise disciplines including yoga, calisthenics, parkour, meditation & much more.

A home for free social events to build a healthy, all inclusive community.

Public Art, plants, trees breathing life and wellness into the heart of Chicago.

Your HealthPark will be a public park that brings more green space and trees to Grant Park. Public parks have the power to preserve nature and make nature accessible to city dwellers to heal, renew, and restore mind and body. The HealthPark amplifies a park's natural traits by inviting people to move, be active, be purposeful and learn how to improve their health within a public outdoor setting. By adding trees and creating more space for social interaction, the HealthPark will positively impact physical + mental health outcomes. The HealthPark will create and strengthen social ties while reducing isolation and depression.

Bailey Nurseries is donating hundreds of perennial plants and bushes to green up the planters and perennial flower beds at the Grant Skate Park. The GPC has worked with Lollapalooza to add several more trees to the Grant Skate Park last summer. A collaboration that works and will continue. We also have a generous $50,000 donation to create a beautiful and functioning labyrinth which we are excited to organically grow!

The GPC has been charged with making sure all areas of the Grant Skate Park are programmed from the open grassy area and area to the south. The GPC will relocate the well-received and very successful VibeUp (vibeup.today) outdoor fitness events in Grant Park to the HealthPark area and bring in new, exciting events the public demands with the goal of getting people moving and healthy as the main focus.

Activity reduces vandalism. The stone ping pong table at the Skate Park was destroyed by vandals. We plan on replacing the ping pong table with work-out equipment making lemonade from lemons.

The GPC continues to support roller hockey (chicagoskylinesports.com) at its existing location. Roller Hockey is part of the HealthPark experience and a living park. We re-activated a dead space (old test skate park) with physical activity, team building and competition, We are proud to bring back this beloved Chicago lakefront tradition and look forward to pre and post Lollapalooza seasons in 2018. Chicago Skyline Sports will work closely with the GPC to make sure that the space will not interrupt Lollapalooza or the Chicago Marathon in any way.

How has outdoor exercise changed your life? Why is outdoor exercise important to you? Why does the world need more outdoor public health spaces?

Please sign the Change.org HealthPark petition, comment and share your thoughts on this exciting endeavor! Let us know what you think, your vision, and how you would use the HealthPark.

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