
A few years ago, while living in Dearborn, a friend asked me to join him and his family for a picnic. It was during the pandemic, and I figured we would sit on blankets somewhere in the grass, perhaps under a tree. Instead, we ended up meeting in the parking lot of a hotel, each of us on fold-up chairs next to our cars, with nothing above us to shield us from the sun. It’s not that my friend liked being in a parking lot; it’s just that back then, there were really no parks in Dearborn.
Today, I suspect my friend would likely choose to host a picnic at a different location in Dearborn, the newly opened PEACE park in the city’s west end. On Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, Dearborn Mayor Abdullah H. Hammoud celebrated the completion of the first of three parks that are part of the Park Equity and Access for Civic Engagement (PEACE) Project, a $29.2 million grant-funded investment into the city’s public parks, green infrastructure, and existing outdoor facilities. The second park, in the city’s east end across from the Arab American National Museum, opened in November, and a sports facility is planned to open in 2025 in the city’s south end.
The PEACE park, by Imagine Design & Build, takes up about a block and is located next to a free parking garage. It looks like the type of garden one might see in a museum courtyard, with square patches of grass intersected by wide footpaths, all in a neat, arresting geometric pattern. In the middle is an elevated stage with state-of-the-art audio equipment. Off to the side is a semiclosed circular area to sit in, offering an ideal space for an outdoor meeting, as well as another table with a built-in chessboard. Tucked in the corner are some of metro Detroit’s cleanest public bathrooms. Public Wi-Fi is available, too.
When I visited, on a Friday afternoon in November, the park was hosting a coffee festival, featuring some of Dearborn’s most celebrated coffee shops, most of which are owned by Yemeni Americans. Mayor Hammoud walked around, in tennis shoes and a hoodie, shaking hands and giving hugs to those who needed a postelection embrace.
Of Michigan’s southeast cities, Dearborn has the youngest population; a sizable number of its residents are teenagers or even younger. For Hammoud, this park — and the two forthcoming — will give them a space in which to gather, an alternative to the usual hang spots in Dearborn: the shawarma restaurant or the mosque parking lot. But there is another purpose to the PEACE park, too.
“It is about encouraging Dearborn residents to visit other parts of the city,” Hammoud says.
East Dearborn is historically an Arab-dominated area, and this park, on the city’s west end, is a way to encourage more intermixing within Dearborn’s diverse communities, he says.
“I hope people outside of Dearborn come to this park, too, to see the amazing things this city has to offer,” he adds.
Ibrahim Alhasbani, the founder and owner of Qahwah House, agrees. He opened his Yemeni coffee shop in Dearborn back in 2017 and now owns more than 20 branches across the U.S. It’s customary to see his coffee shops packed at 10 p.m., and in many ways, he is the reason why Yemeni coffee is so popular across metro Detroit.
When he created his coffee shop, he wanted to give people a sort of third place to gather, aside from their homes and places of worship. Now, they have a fourth space, the PEACE park. But the park offers something that even his café can’t provide.
“In the summer, this shade here in the park is everything,” he says. “At last, we can hang out outside in the summer.”
This story originally appeared in the January 2025 issue of Hour Detroit magazine. To read more, pick up a copy of Hour Detroit at a local retail outlet. Our digital edition will be available on Jan. 6.
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