January 22, 2025 Harlan Electric Lights Up Iconic Roosevelt Park
Detroit park’s revitalization is a picture of the city’s recent resurgence
Roosevelt Park was once the beautiful first sight travelers glimpsed of Detroit as they disembarked the iconic Michigan Central Station which opened in 1914. But for many decades the train station and park sat empty and deteriorating until a city revitalization project that began in 2022 changed all that. The effort breathed new life into this public space.
Harlan Electric Company (Harlan Electric) supported the park’s transformation and beautification by performing all the streetlight work in and around Roosevelt Park for the Detroit Public Lighting Authority (PLA).
One of the city’s goals with the park project was to reunify neighborhoods around the park and create a safer, community-friendly space for residents and visitors – making streetlighting a crucial element of the project.
Streetlighting is essential for safety and to create an attractive space that feels inviting to the public. For the park’s revitalization, Harlan Electric crews installed all the interior and exterior streetlighting for the park, which included 50 light poles.
All power for the lights was fed underground, requiring installation of foundations, 7,500 feet of trenching and boring to accommodate more than 15,000 feet of conduit, wire pulling, and pole setting. The lighting fixtures were the same decorative fixtures used throughout the adjacent historic Corktown neighborhood.
With most of the electrical construction team born and raised in Detroit, they took pride in working to beautify this historic park in their home city.
Successfully Meeting Firm Deadlines in A Short Timeline
This was a high visibility and time sensitive project. Harlan Electric began construction in April 2023 and needed to have all interior streetlight work completed by late June 2024 – in time for a public, official re-opening ceremony with the mayor and other city officials.
Harlan Electric successfully met the deadlines through excellent internal project planning. Project manager Max Dade consulted his general foreman and foremen, who are native Detroiters, with the right expertise for the project and knowledgeable about the city. Together, they determined the best work methods and accurately assessed equipment and labor needs.
Dade and his team also worked closely with the PLA, as well as other city government departments, city engineers, city inspector and other contractors performing other work on the site. The team proactively communicated and brought solutions when challenges arose.
Harlan Electric accurately anticipated there would be many underground unknowns while working in one of the oldest parks in Detroit. To overcome those uncertainties, they confirmed with local utilities before digging to ensure all lines they encountered were dead and cut off, and that nothing the crews encountered during the digging work would be a safety hazard.
The crews carefully removed large rocks, cut out and disposed of old, non-working sprinkler lines they came across and worked around other former underground systems to properly install all the underground infrastructure for the street lighting.
To prevent any damage to the park grounds, including the new sidewalks and sod which were being added simultaneously, Harlan Electric utilized concrete buggies to transport concrete to the pour sites for the needed foundations.
The team was committed to staying on schedule, knowing what had to be accomplished each day. They consistently found solutions when unforeseen changes came up – such as shifting to work in a different section of the park due to other contractors’ needs.
Safety performance was top notch on the project, with zero injuries on the project thanks to the vigilance of team members and experience of the foremen.
Pre-Apprentices Assist with Roosevelt Park’s Transformation
Harlan Electric relied upon labor resources of IBEW Local 17 journeymen, apprentices, and pre-apprentices through the firm’s unique partnership with the PLA for the Roosevelt Park project.
The PLA began the Public Lighting Authority Nurturing Talent (PLANT) program in 2020 to offer more Detroiters, especially minorities, a pathway into the electrical trade.
Born out of the PLA’s desire to expand opportunity for locals, the collaboration with Local 17 and contractors (including Harlan Electric), is an innovative program which trains individuals from the ground up, helps them obtain the necessary credentials and certifications to apply for an apprenticeship, and prepares them for that application and interview process.
Working under experienced foremen on this project, PLANT pre-apprentices were able to gain experience framing forms for manholes and hand holes, trenching for underground conduit, wire pulling, operating a mini derrick, rigging and setting streetlight poles and more. All of which set them up for future apprenticeships and trade success. It also gave the pre-apprenticeship the opportunity to work on a flagship location in Detroit. Years from now they’ll be able to look back with pride on their involvement in Roosevelt Park’s transformation.
