The Metro Park system in this region is one of the top park systems in the country.

It is award winnin and successful by many accounts.

Well, let's head out to talk a little history and a lot about the exciting plans in store for this Regent' Park system with CEO Dave Zink.

So, Dave, welcome.

Dave Zenk: Thanks for being here.

Kristi: So great to be with you.

All right.

So first of all, we need an overview of this park system that i incredible here in our region.

Give us some examples of som statistics of the park system.

Dave Zenk: Yeah.

So Metro Parks today has actually grown to steward 13,000 acres of property.

Part of that growt really started from the ambition to create a bit more o an equitable portfolio of parks.

So we're nearly 100 years old as an institution, but most of that time was actually spent working in western, rural, suburban Lucas County.

And around 2012 or so, we made the intentional goal to pivot and make sur that we were serving everyone.

So we created a goal to place a park within five mile of every resident in the county.

And in 2020, actually in the midst of the global pandemic, we opened Manhattan Marsh in North Toledo to accomplish that goal.

We also have about 200 miles of trails, and we're working on connecting each one of those parks to each other.

Kristi: I'm always thinking about the consumer and the user of the parks.

Dave Zenk: Part of our work is really centered on connecting parks to parks and parks, to.

Kristi: People I know from doing so many business stories on business life through 60 that as businesses look at the regio and they think about moving here or moving their families here.

One of the big, really significant pieces of that is the park system that really plays a role.

Tell us more about that.

Dave Zenk: Yeah.

You know, one of the things that we've really started focusing on is the quality of life of our region.

And I think as a community, the greater Toledo area has really done a much better job over the last few years of marketing ourselves.

The way we talk about ourselves has become much more sophisticated.

The notion of quality of lif is not a nice to have anymore, as we think about attracting new businesses and talent.

People want to live to work where they live and ultimately quality of life is i the fundamental characteristic.

And so as we continue to invest in our downtown and we grow our parks and we create these new experiences, that's all part of the stor of the greater northwest Ohio.

And I think the great thing is our work has expanded.

If you look at the narrative and the headlines that that surprised Toledo, starting just going back 2014 or so, we have now changed the narrative and gotten on virtually every best of every quality of life list and are really out competing most of the peer cities that we aspired to be just a few years ago, we were really fortunate.

In 2020, we were we were named the top park district in the entire country and really outcompete in cities that, frankly, we can't compete with in very many other ways.

Kristi: And as we look at the past, the present, let's talk a little bit about the future and what we have that's really exciting in the Riverwalk.

Dave Zenk: Yeah, we're really excited about this.

It's certainly the largest project that we've ever taken on.

And in many ways, it's als analogous to our past as well, because the community, again, came together to launch this.

And the truth of the matter is the Riverwalk and the recreation, frankly, of our downtow was not really Metro Parks idea.

It was a group of business leaders that came together and really wanted to answer the question of what had to happe to make Toledo more competitive.

And the obvious conclusion that we drew was we were using our greatest public asset, which was our riverfront, in some of the worst ways possible.

We were storing our bulk road salt here.

The property was littered wit abandoned warehouses and vacant property from former industry, which had long since left.

And so the idea emerged to really recreate and invent all of this, creating over 300 acres of new, renovated, open space with vibrant experiences that would help activate it.

We're connecting into six individual neighborhood downtown now, some of our oldest and most impoverished neighborhoods.

So the project is really propping them up and supporting them.

It's connecting both sides of the river.

I mean, we're here in East Toledo today, and the type of energ and investment that we're seeing is, is a big part of the story as well, because one of the things that we saw as we benchmark other communities was this multiplying effect.

And empirically, it plays out every every other community that's done this.

You see a public organizatio invest in the private commercial industry response and often multiplies by 7 to $10.

And we saw that play out here in East Toledo, where we invested $5 million in an out of town developer, came and built a mixed use commercial development for $50 million next door.

And that would have been a big investment anyplace but to have it happen at that point in time in East Toledo, that was unheard of.

And so we're really excited because we're only 25% of the way into this project, and we've seen almost $500 million in private investment around the periphery of it.

Kristi: The fact that you've pulled together public and private and individua and corporate and construction partnerships as you have, is really phenomenal.

It truly is.

What year do you see thi actually coming to full fruition and completion?

Dave Zenk: Well, we're at a great moment in time because we're starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

If you will.

And as we benchmark those communities, I talked about, almost every one of them took between 22 and 24 years to complete the type of project that we're talking about.

I mean, at the end of the day.

This investment that we're piecing together represents about a quarter of $1 billion worth of work.

So it's a really large initiative.

We're on track to complet this project in about 12 years.

And like I said, we're glad City Metropark represents 25% of this project.

The next 25% is well underwa and be complete about this time next year.

So 2025 represents a real another real milestone for us and leads us to complete the Vistula Corridor and the rest of International Park.

So around 2030, 2031, we'll we'll be cutting the final ribbon.

Kristi: An we're even talking pickleball.

Pickleball, one of the fastes growing sports in the country.

Yeah, that's going to be here.

Tell us more about what we're going to see as we stand on one side of the river and look to the other side, and then sort of back the other way.

Dave Zenk: Well, one of the thing that we started to realize is, as a community, we launched the ambition to create the country's best river walk, and we're well on our way to do that.

What that required for Metroparks, frankly, is to act as a bit of a convener.

We're doing a lot of things down here, and you're seeing a lot of new amenities like the family entertainment Center, which will have a pickleball facility, new restaurants and outdoor dining.

We've got the skating ribbon but what we're doing is actually convening partners and joint ventures to do all of this.

So when you see things lik that, well, Metro is a partner and we will ultimately benefit financially.

We're not actually operating those things.

And so we're folding in funding it, funding partners and business partners to really activate this whole riverfront in new ways, but also keeping us true to our mission and focused on what we do.

Kristi: And what a model for success.

I mean, you did your homework ahead of time to look at some of the othe park systems across the country.

But now what we're doing here in northwest Ohio and in this region is truly just going to be amazing for other park systems looking to really see a prototype of success.

Dave Zenk: You're startin to see a lot of other portions of our country actually look to what's happening here.

Last year, as a for instance, we had a travel writer from Forbes come in and document this project and talk about how it fundamentally is a model that can be replicated in other communities across the country.

So we're we are starting to get a lot of phone calls about how we're doing this.

It wasn't that long ago we wer a small, sleepy park district, and to pull something like thi off would have been unheard of.

So it really is exciting.

Kristi And that's what the Metroparks is all about, impacting their lives for the best.

So Dave, thanks so much for being with us on Businesslive 360.

This has been great to learn more about the Metroparks.

Dave Zenk: Yeah, thanks for having me.

Kristi: You bet.