Todd Palmeter is making Great Parks greater

Drawing public into parks and into process

Todd Palmeter doesn’t want buildings named for him. The CEO of Great Parks of Hamilton County is building his legacy outdoors.

As he approaches his seventh anniversary in the system’s top job, he’s overseeing a major overhaul of its facilities and a refinement of its mission. The direction of those changes is the result of expanded public engagement and of collaboration with peer organizations across the region. He spoke with Movers & Makers at Sharon Woods, the system’s oldest park, which also is in the midst of renovations.

Palmeter smiles easily through his short beard. He grew up in Ashland, Kentucky, which simultaneously offered the benefits of a small city, the close-knit ties of a small town and close proximity to nature. He decided to pursue landscape architecture after reading about the profession and visiting the University of Kentucky, where he would go on to earn his degree. He was drawn to the creativity he saw.

“I visited the campus,” he said, “and saw the models of what kids were making on the wall, doing renderings.”

A multidisciplinary field

While the great landmarks of landscape architecture are certainly outdoors – think of the work of Frederick Law Olmsted, the father of U.S. landscape architecture who designed New York’s Central and Prospect parks, and entire systems of parks in Buffalo, Milwaukee and Louisville – Palmeter said the biggest misconception about the profession is believing it’s a job for those who want to work mostly outdoors.

In fact, landscape architecture is a fairly rigorous multidisciplinary field that combines facets of art, architecture, engineering and science, especially soil studies. Nevertheless, Palmeter said he loves the time he spends in nature.

Palmeter came to Great Parks in 2003 as a park planner after spending almost a decade post-graduation working on commercial projects. That included three years working on resorts at Hilton Head, South Carolina. “I didn’t know that public parks and recreation was even a choice,” he said. 

The resort work gave him valuable experience. “I learned so much,” he said. “I wouldn’t have gotten the job here without it.”

Hilton Head gave him something more personal, too. One spring, he met a young woman there who was taking part in a tennis tournament over spring break. The two celebrate their 30th anniversary this year.

‘Champions of the outdoors’

Jobs he worked on in the late 1990s in Charlotte, North Carolina, introduced him to others working in the public park system there and showed him the opportunities in that field. (Charlotte’s Mecklenburg County Park and Recreation system manages hundreds of facilities from recreation centers to parks, nature preserves and even sports stadiums.)

In March 2003, Palmeter applied for and got a park planner job – essentially a landscape architect, he said – with what then was known as the Hamilton County Park District. One of his first jobs was to design a children’s play area. It’s still a personal favorite, in part because his young son served as a consultant. 

“Instead of saying ‘This is what I think kids want,’ I could ask him, ‘What would you want here?’ ”

Getting that kind of stakeholder input has become a Palmeter trademark. Since becoming CEO in May 2019 – “It’s easy to remember because my first day was my daughter’s 13th birthday” – he has led Hamilton County’s parks through impressive changes in response to public input he was integral to gathering. 

“We’ve changed who we are,” he said. “Instead of saying, ‘This is what we should do for the public,’ we want the public to be champions of the outdoors with us.”

It’s a formula that seems to be working. In November, a 10-year property tax-levy renewal to support Great Parks passed with nearly a 50-point margin; more than 74% of county voters supported it. 

Experiences are key to Palmeter’s vision for Great Parks. “Come here, have an amazing experience and then you’ll want to come back again,” he said. 

Trails, conservation and wildlife

Shaping those experiences are annual surveys that ask the public what it wants to see in its parks. The surveys were key to refining the system’s current master plan, which was adopted in 2019 and defines major goals through 2028. Two consistently rank at the top of the list: trails and protecting water quality.

A look at Great Parks’ projects page shows several trail projects, many of which link park system trails with the many existing trail systems across the region, including the Crown – the Cincinnati Riding or Walking Network. Others improve options in existing parks. Those include linking Glenwood Gardens and Winton Woods, and trails at Otto Armleder Park and the Werk Road park being built on the site of the razed James N. Gamble House in Westwood.

It also includes leading the planning and design of the Oasis Trail, a 4.75-mile stretch that will run from Sawyer Point downtown to Lunken Airport on a retired part of a freight rail line. By connecting there to the Little Miami Trail, part of the Ohio-to-Erie trail network, it should allow people to walk or cycle from downtown Cincinnati to Cleveland almost entirely free of public roads. In a major milestone, the Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority, Metro’s parent, secured rights to the land’s easement in February.

Palmeter said the system’s conservation-based model resonates with the public. “Wildlife speaks the most to people,” he said. To support that, Great Parks’ goal is to preserve 80% of the land it manages as undeveloped natural space. That so far covers more than 28 square miles of natural habitats like forests, prairies and wetlands, and it’s growing. Projects across the county, for example, will reclaim wetlands that had been developed.

Water recognizes no boundaries

Water quality is integral to the parks’ mission. Palmeter said people are surprised to learn that Great Parks properties include more than 25 miles of river frontage. Because water doesn’t notice political boundaries such as county lines, the park system collaborates on conservation efforts with several area water conservancy districts and the park systems in neighboring counties.

Palmeter measures success not just by human feedback. He’s excited to see the growing diversity of wildlife found at the parks. Particularly symbolic is the recovery of bald eagles. A rare sight 20 years ago, they’re now spotted at 10 parks all across the county – from Shawnee Lookout to Miami Whitewater Forest to Woodland Mound, and even in more urban facilities like Fernbank and Otto Armleder parks. (Great Parks manages the latter two in partnership with Cincinnati Parks.)

Parks renewed and new parks

Two of the system’s most popular lakes have undergone reconstructions. The Army Corps of Engineers last year drew down Winton Woods Lake (officially West Fork Lake) to repair the flood control dam there. Sharon Lake was slated to reopen in March after a two-year project to dredge years of built up silt from the lake bed. That clears the way for a $17 million overhaul of Sharon Woods Harbor. That two-year makeover is to include an educational amphitheater, nature-integrated play areas, a new permanent boathouse, refreshed snack bar, expanded parking and updated restrooms. 

“We’ve created a design that highlights the lake’s beauty and opens dramatic new recreation opportunities on and near the water,” Palmeter said. With the other improvements undertaken at Sharon Woods, he said, “our guests will be getting a new park.”

Guests are getting more parks, too. During Palmeter’s tenure, Great Parks has added about 5,000 acres to its holdings, which now stand at about 18,000 acres. With few large tracts of privately held undeveloped land remaining in the county, the focus is on expanding existing parks and adding unique spaces where possible. 

Palmeter is particularly proud of adding the former Gamble estate. The April 2013 demolition of the estate’s historic Victorian mansion by the land’s former owner, the Greenacres Foundation, and its potential commercial development, led to an outcry from neighbors and preservationists. Great Parks was able to step in, acquire the 22-acre site and ensure its public use.

“It’s a really underserved area,” he said.

Slated for the site are forest, meadow and wetland restorations, a mile and a half of trails, nature-themed play areas and support structures.

Taking inspiration

When he’s not helping to create experiences for the rest of us, Palmeter loves to be – you guessed it – out in nature. “That’s what feeds me,” he said. “I have to spend time outdoors.”

“National parks are a huge inspiration,” he said, starting with a trip to Montana’s Glacier National Park in the 1990s. Bryce Canyon and Zion are also favorites. He’s particularly enjoyed being able to travel with his children now that they’re older. His daughter is a student at Ball State University, and his son now works at Rhinegeist Brewery. They’re all “huge hikers,” he said.

That doesn’t mean work isn’t on his mind. He said he always pays attention to details of park operations when he visits. “We joke that we visit parks and send pictures of trash cans home.”

Visiting other places – especially big-city parks like Boston’s and New York’s – make him appreciate Greater Cincinnati’s assets. “It’s got big-city opportunity without big city headaches.”

Palmeter remains dedicated to improving our quality of life with new and better outdoor experiences. Fortunately, he’s far from alone in that effort.

“If that ties back to me as a leader, that’s great,” he said. “But it’s not about me. It’s the whole staff. I don’t need my name on anything.”

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