Downtown Chatham will soon be home to Legends Park, celebrating Chatham-Kent residents who are the best in their field of choice.
Chatham-Kent Mayor Darrin Canniff told CK Mornings with Chris, Allanah, and Matt the idea is to initially honour 30 or 40 Chatham-Kent natives who have made a difference outside of the community and contributed on a global scale, either in arts and culture, social justice, sports, science, business, agriculture, and more, and to inspire residents young and old.
Canniff said the goal is to get the park's design done this year and build the park next year.
Mayor Canniff said legends like Hall of Fame pitcher Fergie Jenkins and award-winning country music artist Michele Wright are obvious choices, but he wants to go back in history to make sure nobody is left out.
"We're going to come up with a really cool centrepiece and we're going to go worldwide to find an artist to come in and do this. We want one of those mind blowing things that people are going to want to go and take their picture with -- that's going to be the criteria," said the mayor.
Canniff said it's going to be a spectacular site that Chatham-Kent residents can be proud of.
"It's going to be a really cool park. There's going to be a pavilion, and other various things right there that you can go down and kids can go down and get inspired. Doctors and business people and scientists, anybody that's made a difference. There's a lot of pretty amazing people from Chatham-Kent," Canniff said.
The municipality is looking worldwide for an artist to design and create a large sculpture for Legends Park. The deadline to apply is June 30, 2024 and the budget is a maximum of $250,000.
The municipality noted the artist will have a circle approximately 15 feet in width with no height restriction and they would like the sculpture to have the capacity to add legendary names in the future.
The park will also include plaques providing additional information on each legend.
Legends Park is set to go on donated land beside the Kent Club next to the Chatham-Kent Civic Centre next to the Third Street Bridge. The parcel of land was donated by the estate of Thomas Duncan Campbell. Mr. Campbell was a Chatham Alderman as well as a former lawyer and real estate developer in Chatham-Kent.
The municipality solicited ideas from the public last year for the parcel of land.