Happy birthday to Detroit’s newest front porch. Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Centennial Park, the 22-acre riverfront park at 1801 West Jefferson Avenue, opened to the public on October 25, 2025 — which makes today, October 25, 2026, exactly its first anniversary.
The park, run by the nonprofit Detroit Riverfront Conservancy, turned the old West Riverfront Park into a landscape of play and gathering: the Delta Dental Play Garden, with its 23-foot bear slide and giant otter and beaver sculptures; the Huron-Clinton Metroparks Water Garden, the first Metropark inside the city, with about 100 yards of river fishing; the William Davidson Sport House, where two full Detroit Pistons basketball courts stay busy under a giant pavilion all year; and the DTE Foundation Summit, a panoramic hilltop lawn made for sunsets.
Its opening weekend drew more than 55,000 people to the Detroit Harvest Fest, and its first year has only grown busier: dance and fitness classes, Juneteenth celebrations, weekly movie nights in its first full summer of 2026, and DIA Inside|Out reproductions in the park from May to October. The Riverwalk extension opened alongside it now links the park in one continuous stroll to Belle Isle — about 4.75 miles of riverfront.
The park is open daily from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., dogs on leashes are welcome, and parking on Jefferson is free. One year in, it has already become what its designers hoped: a park shaped with 21 Detroit residents on its advisory team, and loved like it has always been there.
Photo: Detroit Riverfront Conservancy
