Home Detective Cookie Chess Park

Detective Cookie Chess Park

Goals:
Activate community spaces with highly engaging, positive community-building activity to stem crime and undesirable behaviors.

Honor Detective Cookie’s efforts to start a Chess Club welcoming at risk youth in a socio-economically diverse community.

Create short-term pop-up park.

Secure location for and create permanent chess park.

Provide residents with a positive environment to connect, learn, and grow together.
Strategy:
We knew that we had to play the long game to crack this placemaking challenge.

We started with a local beloved figure, Seattle Police Department’s Detective Denise “Cookie” Bouldin, who launched a chess club for kids in a high-risk neighborhood to help teach them how to make good, strategic choices.

The concept centered around the universal game of chess as a medium to unite diverse community members. The park features built-in chess tables and a giant in-ground chessboard, symbolizing strategic thinking and community unity. Public art installations, such as the "King and Queen of Rainier Beach" sculptures by Peter Reiquam, enhance the park's cultural significance.

We secured a grant to create a “Pop-Up” chess park with giant chess pieces and partnered with local businesses; local business associations and chamber; arts, economic and community development agencies; City of Seattle; local schools and community center to secure locations and events for the pop-up park and get additional funding to support the project.

After two years of activating the pop-up park, we were able to garner community interest to influence the design of a public art work to honor the Detective Cookie Chess Club on a parcel that we hoped could become a permanent chess park.

We partnered with Seattle Parks Foundation, enlisted a local award-winning landscape firm, and performed extensive public outreach to community associations, community groups, business groups, and the adjacent senior living facility for feedback.

The project was on track and eventually we enlisted the help of our friend Erin Lau who, with Seattle Parks Foundation, was able to get Seattle Metro on board to activate the parcel for the park.

After seven years of planning, the park finally opened in 2022 to hundreds of supportive onlookers.
Deliverables:
  • Concept development
  • Public outreach to residents, businesses, and key community stakeholders
  • Design
  • Event management
  • Grant management
  • Project management
    • Results:
    The Detective Cookie Chess Park exemplifies how strategic collaboration and community-driven initiatives can transform public spaces, fostering unity and personal development.

    The Detective Cookie Chess Park has become a cherished community asset, offering a safe space for residents of all ages to engage in chess and build relationships. The park's success has been highlighted in various media outlets, showcasing its positive impact on the neighborhood. The initiative has strengthened community bonds, reduced feelings of isolation, and promoted critical life skills through chess.

    Initial Detective Cookie Pop-up Chess Park efforts were enthusiastically welcomed and activated in high-risk areas and dozens of community events throughout the region.

    Multi-generational and multi-cultural players anticipated the park and consistently played chess while the pop-up park was available. The pop-up park acted as a beacon to raise funds for the permanent chess park which opened almost exactly to its original design with a tremendous amount of fanfare and is used regularly by locals and Detective Cookie’s Chess Club.

    Public art piece at the permanent location was created to honor the Detective Cookie Chess Park and has become the favorite art piece in the community.
    "Maia & Daimian's ability to pull together huge, ambitious events/projects like BAAMfest, Light Up the Beach, and the Detective Cookie Chess Park still marvels me. Through these events, they not only brought the community together in the vision and planning, but in the events themselves. To this day, those events are unrivaled in their ability to connect the Rainier Beach community with each other and local neighborhood businesses. The seeds that were planted through these events continue to feed our community."
    – - Jenny Frankl former City of Seattle Department of Neighborhoods liaison

    Project Date

    2015 - 2022

    Project Type

    Placemaking, community development, community building, public outreach, event management, project management

    Clients & Collaborators

    Seattle Parks Foundation, Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT), Rainier Beach Merchants Association, Seattle Housing Authority (SHA), Johnson and Southerland Landscape Design, Southeast Effective Development (SEED) Seattle, SEEDArts, Artist Peter Reiquam, The Detective Cookie Chess Club, Local Resident and Business Stakeholders