Anyone who has walked or biked the western end of the Kal-Haven Trail this year has passed a stretch of wooded acreage at the southeast corner of Blue Star Highway that has not done much of anything for a long time. That is changing. A five-acre corner of that ground is on track to open this year as South Haven's first public dog park, funded by a state matching grant and a community capital campaign.
The dog park is the visible part. The 49 acres underneath it, known locally as Riverwoods, carry a longer and messier history, and the order in which things are actually getting built there tells you something true about how a small town like this pays for public space. It doesn't draft a master plan and build the whole vision at once. It builds whatever is cheapest and fastest to fund first, and lets the bigger, pricier pieces wait their turn.
What's arriving before anything else
The South Haven Bark Park at Riverwoods is the first project to break ground on the newly acquired land. It is planned as a fully fenced five-acre area with separate sections for small and large dogs, replacing the town's only existing option: a small membership-based dog run on 8th Avenue that has been in use for about 15 years on land donated by the Do It Corporation and its CEO, Mark McClendon. Organizer Robert Linstrom, who has led the fundraising push, put the contrast bluntly when describing the current setup: "It's just open field and a lot of fencing."
The new park is meant to be free and open to any resident or visitor, which is itself a change for South Haven. The first phase carries a budget of roughly $150,000, broken down into specific line items:
- Fencing: $88,000
- Site preparation: $35,000
- Entryway: $9,900
- Airlock gates: $7,500
- Path: $6,500
- Signage: $1,500
- Dog waste disposal: $1,600
The Michigan Economic Development Corporation offered a $50,000 matching grant tied to raising the first $50,000 by mid-July, on top of a broader campaign goal of $180,000. As of this spring, organizers were targeting a public opening before the end of summer.
The land's complicated backstory
Riverwoods was not acquired with a dog park in mind. The Michigan Department of Natural Resources ended up holding the 49-acre parcel along the Black River after an earlier development on the site fell through, and the land sat unused for roughly a decade before anyone found a purpose for it. The South Haven Area Recreation Authority, known locally as SHARA, began pursuing a purchase in 2024, and the sale closed in October 2025. SHARA acquired the property at just 25 percent of its fair market value, with the deed permanently restricted to outdoor recreation so the land can never be sold for commercial development.
"We've taken a site with a complex past and secured its future as a recreational space," said Ross Stein, SHARA's board chair.
The DNR also contributed $200,000 in grant funding to help start site work, and Visit South Haven, the area's convention and visitors bureau, has committed to financing several of the larger pieces still to come: a replacement fishing pier, a relocated pavilion, and a new kayak launch. Those projects require more design work and more money than a fenced dog run, and none of them has a public opening date yet. That gap is the pattern worth paying attention to. The dog park is moving first not because residents voted it the top priority, but because it is the one piece a $50,000 state match and a few months of local fundraising can actually finish.
Board member Jennifer Sistrunk described the moment the purchase finally closed after years of stalled discussions: "So now here we are at the finish line with our 49 acres."
Where the old bridge comes back in
The other piece planned for Riverwoods is tied to one of the more contested decisions on the Kal-Haven Trail in recent years. For decades, a covered footbridge built and donated by the Nichols family carried trail users across the Black River near the South Haven trailhead, a 108-foot span that had become one of the most photographed spots on the western end of the trail. When the DNR inspected the trail's bridges ahead of a $6 million resurfacing project that closed a 14-mile stretch from South Haven to Bloomingdale in 2023, it determined the covered structure could no longer safely carry any real load. Despite efforts from the Friends of the Kal-Haven Trail to preserve the bridge or at least its roofline, the DNR replaced it that year with an open span built for easier access by grooming equipment and emergency vehicles. The community held a farewell ceremony before the old bridge came down.
Visit South Haven took ownership of the removed materials rather than let them be scrapped, and they have sat in storage since. The organization has now committed to financing the bridge's relocation to Riverwoods, where a portion of it is planned to serve as an entryway feature at the point where the property meets the Kal-Haven Trail. One distinction is worth making here: this is not the same covered bridge that still stands near the trail's midpoint between Bloomingdale and Grand Junction, which was built specifically for the trail and remains one of its signature photo stops during peak fall color. South Haven lost its river crossing. It is getting the timber back as a gateway instead.
What this actually means if you already live here
If your regular walk or ride starts at the South Haven trailhead, the corner to watch this year is the southeast intersection of Blue Star Highway and the trail, not the trail surface itself, since that stretch was already resurfaced through Bloomingdale in the 2023 to 2024 project. The Bark Park is the piece most likely to be usable first, simply because it is the piece with a clear budget and a matching grant behind it. The fishing pier, pavilion, and kayak launch depend on the funding Visit South Haven has committed, and the bridge relocation depends on site work that has not been scheduled publicly yet.
None of that is a knock on the pace. It is a fairly normal way for a town with a modest tax base to build out a large property: cheapest and most fundable first, biggest and most technical last. A parcel that sat fenced and empty for most of a decade is about to become one of the more used pieces of ground in South Haven, and the rest of the 49 acres will fill in behind it in whatever order the money allows.
We spend a lot of time walking these same stretches of the Kal-Haven Trail with people who are still deciding what daily life in South Haven should look like, and a project like Riverwoods is exactly the kind of local detail that never shows up on a listing sheet. If you are curious how a specific block or trail-adjacent property sits relative to what is landing at Riverwoods this year, Sold By Group is glad to walk it with you. Schedule your free home consultation.
