The Covered Bridge Reopens This Month. The Party Isn't Coming Back With It.

For most of the last decade, one patch of grass off the Thornapple River did every job downtown Ada needed. Leonard Field hosted community softball and baseball games. It also hosted Beers at the Bridge, the summer concert series that fills Ada Village with cover bands, cider, and folding chairs. One field, two very different reasons to show up on a Friday night. That arrangement is ending this month, and it's ending in a way a lot of residents probably haven't clocked yet.

Construction crews are putting the final touches on Covered Bridge Park, the $8.5 million project that has occupied the old Leonard Field site since Ada Township broke ground there on September 3, 2025. The north entrance to the newly restored historic covered bridge is already open for walkers, and full completion is expected sometime in August, according to a recent update from grkids.com. That's later than the township first projected. Reporting from last fall, when the project broke ground, put phase two, the section that adds the pedestrian bridge and trail connections, on track for June 2026. It slipped by at least two months.

Here's the part that actually changes how a resident should think about their own downtown. Beers at the Bridge didn't wait around for Leonard Field to reopen. It already ran once this year, on June 12, and has one date left on the 2026 calendar: Friday, August 14, both at Legacy Park across the river, not at the field that's supposedly about to reopen. That's not new for this summer alone. In August 2025, with Legacy Park freshly renovated and its new amphitheater in place, the series moved there too. Two summers running, the concerts have happened somewhere other than the site now being finished as Covered Bridge Park.

And when you look at what's actually going into that new park, a splash pad, a playground, two pickleball courts, a dog park, a veteran's memorial, a kayak launch, there's no amphitheater. No open lawn built to hold a crowd facing a stage. Legacy Park has that now. Covered Bridge Park doesn't. Whatever the original plan looked like on paper, the practical result is that downtown Ada isn't returning to one flexible field that does everything. It's ending up with two separate spaces that each do one thing well.

What each space is actually built for

If you've been assuming the concerts move back once the fencing comes down, that's probably not what happens. Beers at the Bridge has a real home now, and it isn't the site currently wrapping up construction.

Kevin Austin, director of the Ada Township Downtown Development Authority, explained the appeal of the current setup plainly when asked about the venue change: "We have a great, new amphitheater there." That's not a consolation prize description. It's the reason a temporary fix turned into the arrangement that's now run for two consecutive summers.

The two parks are about to be connected anyway

Here's the twist that makes this less of a loss than it might sound. Part of the Covered Bridge Park build includes a new pedestrian bridge over the Thornapple River linking the park directly to Legacy Park on the opposite bank. Ada Township's own Legacy Park page lists that crossing as a 2026 project. So even though the two spaces are splitting into distinct jobs, one for concerts, one for splash pads and dog walks, they're being physically tied together for the first time. Once that bridge is finished, a resident could plausibly walk from a Friday night show at Legacy Park straight across the river into the new park's picnic area without getting back in a car. The riverfront isn't shrinking. It's being organized into a loop instead of one multi-purpose lot.

What else is filling in around the construction fence

The park isn't the only thing changing shape downtown this year. A few names worth knowing if you haven't been through Ada Village lately:

• Terra Kitchen is bringing the Grand Rapids restaurant group's bagels, coffee, and farm-to-table dinner service under one roof in Ada Village, slated to open by September according to a July 2026 report from Crain's Grand Rapids.
• Love's Ice Cream, the scratch-made creamery that got its start at the Grand Rapids Downtown Market back in 2013, opened its Ada location at 7333 Bronson St SE this past May.
• Myrth, the Italian-leaning restaurant from James Beard Award winning chef Paul Berglund, remains one of the anchors of the River Street strip and a reminder that the food scene here didn't start with this year's openings.
• The Ada Farmers Market, running Tuesdays from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. through the end of October, has operated in some form since 2009. Construction at the old field hasn't touched it.

None of this is dependent on the park finishing. The retail and restaurant corridor along River Street and Ada Drive keeps filling in on its own timeline, separate from whatever's happening with the splash pad installation a few blocks away.

What this actually means for the rest of your summer

If you're weighing where to spend a Friday evening before the weather turns, the practical version is this. One more Beers at the Bridge date remains on the 2026 calendar, August 14 at Legacy Park, 7430 River St SE, six to nine at night, with Prior Noon playing and pours from Gravel Bottom Craft Brewery, The Lark Wine Bar, and Railtown Brewing Company. That's your last shot at the series this year, and it's not happening anywhere near the construction fencing at the old field.

If you'd rather see what's actually been built at Covered Bridge Park, the north entrance near the historic bridge is walkable now, even with crews still finishing the rest of the site. Full access, including the splash pad and the new pedestrian bridge to Legacy Park, is expected to open sometime this month. Worth checking back in a few weeks rather than assuming it's ready today.

Either way, the shape of downtown Ada by the end of this year looks different than it did two summers ago. Not because the township tore something down and rebuilt it the same. Because one field that used to try to be everything is becoming two places that are each good at one thing, connected by a bridge that didn't exist before.

If you're watching this stretch of the Thornapple because you're thinking about a move here, or you already live nearby and want to understand what your own neighborhood is turning into, that's the kind of on-the-ground read we spend our time on. Liz Rhoda & Co Real Estate works across Ada Township and the rest of Greater Grand Rapids, and we're always glad to talk through what a changing corner of town actually means for the people who live in it. Get started with a conversation whenever you're ready.