FLINT, Mich. — When the old Mott Park clubhouse sat dark and crumbling, Chad Schlosser had one modest goal — get the lights back on.
“It was nasty in here. The roof was leaking, the basement was leaking, there was lots of old junk, it smelled horrible, the windows were boarded up,” said Schlosser. “I was kind of like, what if we just get the lights working again for safety?”
That small fix in late 2020, prompted by nearby arson and vandalism, became the spark for something much bigger. Over the next few years, neighbors rallied to restore the clubhouse and surrounding grounds, reviving Mott Park as one of Flint’s most vibrant public spaces.
Today, the clubhouse is home to game nights, holiday parties and neighborhood meetings. Outside, the former golf course has been remade into a well-used disc golf course. Sidewalks have been repaired, basketball and hockey courts resurfaced, and a bicycle garden painted with bright colors. On any given day, families stroll with strollers and kids ride bikes through the neighborhood.
Mott Park has faced significant challenges, including the 2008 foreclosure crisis, which left homes boarded up. The 2015 Flint water crisis followed, which Mott Park resident Teddy Robertson described as “another gut punch.”
“During the water crisis, people really joined together,” Robertson said. “We didn’t have that during the mortgage crisis.”
After CS Mott Park Municipal Golf Course closed in 2010, residents started maintaining the grounds themselves. But it wasn’t until after the COVID-19 pandemic that momentum grew. Schlosser and other members of the Mott Park Neighborhood Association began small by replacing light bulbs in the clubhouse.
However, by summer 2021, they had secured a $25,000 grant from the Community Foundation of Greater Flint to replace the roof and HVAC system. An anonymous neighbor donated $3,000 for windows. Others pitched in to fix plumbing and gather gently used equipment for kids. The clubhouse reopened in time for Mott Fest 2022.
The revival of the clubhouse gave the neighborhood association its first permanent meeting space. Previously, members had rotated between two churches.
“One of the pressing issues was to have a place of our own,” Robertson said. “When the city abandoned the golf course, we asked: what could we do?”
The upgrades kept coming: resurfaced tennis courts, new sidewalks, and steady cleanup campaigns through Flint’s Step Up, Pick Up! and Neat Street programs. Mott Park has earned the Step Up, Pick Up! award four years in a row, collecting $1,000 each time for local improvements. Under Neat Street, residents have adopted 43 streets; just 11 remain available.
“Mott Park is a fantastic neighborhood, and the neighbors have been great to work with,” said Joel Arnold, planning and advocacy manager for Communities First Inc.
The State of Michigan also took notice, eyeing the area for inclusion in a new state park.
“The local community had already done a lot of maintenance and upgrades after the golf course closed by adding a disc golf course, river access and other improvements,” said Andrew Cole, Urban Liaison for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. “By bringing it under the state park umbrella, it gets long-term funding and support.”
Genesee County Parks now maintains the grounds, freeing residents to focus on programming, outreach and new ideas. Schlosser, who once handled most clubhouse repairs himself, said the help has been a major relief.
Still, Schlosser says there’s work to be done, especially on streets like Joliet, Bagley and Woodbridge, which have yet to be adopted.
“The triangle north of Chevrolet—Chevrolet to Flushing to Dupont has been harder to get people to engage and just hardest hit with the most vacant lots,” he said.
Perhaps the biggest change on the horizon is housing. Communities First is investing $30 million to build 119 new units in the neighborhood. Forty-five of those units are expected to be completed by the end of 2025.
Arnold says that while geographically it is a good area to invest in, there are other reasons for the organization’s continued investment.
“The neighborhood group has always been really productive and positive to work with,” he said. “If you can build a relationship and folks in the community are excited about development, it just makes adding more homes and more neighbors a really great thing.”
When asked what other neighborhoods might take away from Mott Park’s story, Robertson emphasized that it comes down to action.
“It’s going to take effort,” she said. “I think people, for a long time, lived in places where things were done by other people, and I’ve always felt in Flint that there’s nobody else. There’s just us.”
“As hard as it is, each person has to do something — and I think that was learned here.”