In 2015, former Detroit Tigers baseball player Kirk Gibson was diagnosed with Parkinson’s. The news motivated the retired World Series champion to expand his existing Kirk Gibson Foundation to support Parkinson’s wellness. A few years later, he sketched on a napkin the idea for a center where people diagnosed with the disease could come together to build community and participate in movement-based fitness and educational programming—a vision that came to life with the opening of The Kirk Gibson Center for Parkinson’s Wellness in Farmington Hills, Mich., in October 2025.
“Kirk knew firsthand, from his own experience, how isolating the disease can be—the effect it has not only on the person with Parkinson’s, but also their care partner and the entire family,” says Mary Lynn Foster, CEO, The Kirk Gibson Center for Parkinson’s Wellness.
The Kirk Gibson Center for Parkinson’s Wellness
Among the goals for the wellness center were to create a central hub for activity, education, engagement, and enrichment, where people with Parkinson’s and their families can access free programming, including movement and cognitive programs, which are vital for managing and living with Parkinson’s, says Lily Diego, creative director and design director at Gensler (Detroit), the design and architecture firm for the project.
To gather insights to help guide the planning and design, the project team partnered with InMotion (Cleveland), a community-based wellness center for people with Parkinson’s that opened in 2015. Through discussions with the organization, the team learned about strategies such as ideal class sizes, operational logistics, and key spatial adjacencies, as well as the importance of creating a space that evokes a sense of “no barriers,” Foster says. “Sometimes people with Parkinson’s are a little resistant to participate, asking themselves if they can really do it.” To address this, the center’s central hub includes views out to several “spokes” of activity to encourage users to engage in the various programs.
Redeveloping a former corporate gym and café
To deliver the center, the project team found available space in an office park—an approximately 32,000-square-foot building formerly used as an employee gym and café that included an elevated walking track encircling the main area below. “It was great because it had so many existing bones that we could work off of,” Diego says.
In fact, new-build construction was minimal, Diego says. One wall that was taken down in the central hub provided the most impact in opening up the space, while other structures were punctuated with glass windows to enhance the visibility of activities. “We wanted to really create a warmth to the environment that wasn’t there before and open up the space effectively, thoughtfully and purposefully,” he says.
The final project “is actually very close to how Kirk Gibson drew it on the back of the napkin,” Foster says, adding that the sketch was framed and given to Gibson at the ribbon-cutting ceremony.
“This has been part of my mission, and I am honored to be able to open the doors and welcome [people with Parkinson’s] to our center, where together, we can redefine what it means to live with Parkinson’s disease,” says Gibson.
