In 1990, The City of East Lansing entered into an agreement with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources to accept a Protecting Michigan’s Future Bond Fund Grant in the amount of $69,000 to replace existing windows on the Bailey Community Center. In accepting the grant, the city agreed to permanently encumber the Community Center and surrounding park for recreation use, which now has been converted to limited private use according to the new site plan for the location through a lease to Capital Area Housing Partnership.

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources requires the city to address a number of things before conversion is approved including identifying a property of similar value to the conversion parcel for mitigation.

The city chose the land located at the northeast corner of Albert Avenue and Abbot Road as mitigation. This is why the city has requested designation of it as a public park. 

The action to submit the request was unanimously approved.

If the Michigan Department of Natural Resources approves the request, Bailey Community Center will be converted to limited private space and the parcel, sometimes referred to as "no-name park" or the "faces and fountains park" due to the fountain and statue with multiple faces on it located on the parcel, will officially become a public park.

Both Mayor Nathan Triplett and Council member Kathleen Boyle said the approval to request was a "win-win."

"I am certainly fully in support of the housing partnership plan going forward to put senior housing and public space within the current Bailey Community Center and I think that the corner of Albert Street and Abbott is a lovely green space downtown and I’d like to see it remain as a green space," Boyle said. 

"I see people there enjoying the use of it often particularly in this weather and I think it’s going to be wonderful to have it formally designated as a park and taken off the redevelopment ready list.”