RDC renamed Memphis River Parks Partnership
Nearly two decades after it was created, the Riverfront Development Corp. is getting a new name and mission.
The nonprofit firm that has guided development along the banks of the Mississippi River in Memphis is now known as the Memphis River Parks Partnership, officials announced Monday.
The name change is part of a rebranding effort that highlights a broader goal — envisioned in a report last year — of melding parks and attractions along a 6-mile stretch of the Mississippi into a “fun, connected and catalytic riverfront,” new president and CEO Carol Coletta said in a prepared statement.
“We chose the word ‘partnership’ intentionally as part of our name because this is and must be a partnership with the people of Memphis and the city of Memphis,” Coletta said.
Since its founding in 2000, the RDC has managed and developed riverfront parks and amenities under a contract with the city, which has contributed nearly $3 million a year to its budget.
The signature project developed by RDC was the approximately $43 million Beale Street Landing, a docking facility for cruise boats and other vessels.
Perennial budget constraints, however, have frustrated RDC’s ambitions for more comprehensive and ambitious efforts to transform the riverfront.
Last fall, the board of directors gathered for a retreat in which members decided RDC needed a leader better suited to raising more private dollars to fund projects. Afterwards,
Benny Lendermon, 65, whom directors had praised for guiding the firm since its founding, announced his retirement, and last month, Coletta, a board member at RDC and senior fellow with the Kresge Foundation, was selected to replace him.
Virginia McLean, president of the group Friends for Our Riverfront, which often has been critical of RDC, said she encouraged by all the “excitement” surrounding the changes.
“I love the new name and hope there’s real substance behind it,” McLean added.
The rebranded group will be guided in part by a 120-page document plan drafted last year by the Chicago firm Studio Gang, which was hired by a riverfront task force appointed by Mayor Jim Strickland.
The Memphis Riverfront Concept, as the document is known, calls for linking amenities from Martin Luther King Jr. Riverside Park on the south to Greenbelt Park on the north to create a “connective network of spaces and opportunities that enrich the human experience, lift the fortunes of Memphis as a whole and reinforce its future viability and resiliency.”
Included in the concept were proposals for an elevated “canopy walk” in Greenbelt Park, a rock-climbing wall and skate park in Tom Lee Park, and investments that would transform Mud Island River Park into a “21st century center for freshwater science and ecoindustry.”
The parks partnership will divide the riverfront into five park districts — Greenbelt, Mud Island, Fourth Bluff, Big River and Martin Luther King. Barring any objections from the Downtown Memphis Commission’s design review board, work will begin in June on a $1.6 million revamp of Mississippi River Park in the Fourth Bluff district, said George Abbott, external affairs director for the group.
Featuring a tree house play area, a meadow, pavilion and other features, the project is funded through a previously awarded grant from Kresge under its “Reimagining the Civic Commons” initiative benefiting Memphis and four other cities.
Work also is expected to begin soon on the RiverLine, a trail connecting parks and attractions along the riverfront. It will be funded through a $750,000 grant from the Hyde Family Foundation.
The parks partnership group is requesting that City Council continue the $2.97 million in annual funding it gave to RDC, Abbott said.
But while still relying on help from the city, the group will be “much more aggressive” in seeking funding from private sources, he said.
Reach Tom Charlier at thomas.charlier@commercialappeal.com or 901529-2572 and on Twitter at @thomasrcharlier.