Work begins on $60 million Tom Lee Park redevelopment
With speeches, the crunch of a ceremonial shovel being pushed into the dirt and, in true 2020 style, an audience watching on Youtube and Zoom, ground was broken Wednesday afternoon on the long-awaited and long-debated updates to Tom Lee Park.
Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland ceremonially shoveled the first patch of dirt before proclaiming, “Let’s get to work.”
He said the project was a jolt of good news for the city in a year full of sickness, death, financial hardship and social isolation.
The groundbreaking was held at the Cutbank Bluff, where construction will begin.
Work on the other side of Riverside Drive will begin in 2021 and is expected to wrap up in early 2023.
Funds for the $60 million park overhaul came from the city, the county and the state as well as donations from individuals, corporations and foundations.
Tyree Daniels, chairman of the Memphis River Parks Partnership board of directors, said the riverfront park will “be a beacon of hope, courage and bravery” honoring the legacy of Tom Lee, who saved the lives of more than 30 people in 1925, pulling them out of the Mississippi River after the steamer M.E. Norman overturned.
“I couldn’t be prouder of our city or this moment we are celebrating today,” he said.
In an interview with The Commercial Appeal, Daniels said with more people moving to Downtown and Uptown Memphis, the park was an essential amenity connecting those parts of the city to each other and to South Memphis.
“Tom Lee park touches all of those areas. It is the park that connects Uptown to (Martin Luther King, Jr. Riverside Park) and South Memphis,” he said.
The park will also provide a space with many of the same features of Shelby Farms Park but is more accessible for people living south of Downtown.
State commissioner of tourist development Mark Ezell said the project would transform Downtown Memphis.
The revamp of the park is part of a wider riverfront revitalization, which also includes River Garden and Fourth Bluff Park as well as the 5-mile River Line trail.
Final schematics for the project, drawn up by architecture firm Studio Gang and landscape architecture firm SCAPE, were released in October.
The park is divided into four sections, broken up by open lawns large enough for concert stages.
From north to south, the sections of the park include the Civic Gateway, with shaded areas and a water feature, the Active Core, with a 20,000-square-foot outdoor event space and fitness equipment, the Community Batture, a quieter area with sloping lawns and a memorial to Lee, and the Habitat Gardens, a natural area with outdoor classrooms and planted with native flora.
Improvements to the park dovetail with a $62 million Downtown parking plan proposed by the Downtown Memphis Commission, which, among other things, calls for the creation of a switchback path down Cutbank Bluff to make a more accessible connection between Vance Avenue and the riverfront.
That, together with efforts to turn Wagner Street into a “festival street,” will cost $6 million, according to the commission.
When those designs were released in October, representatives of the River Parks Partnership said changes to the park would be accompanied by efforts to slow traffic on Riverside Drive, making it safer for pedestrians to cross from the Cutbank Bluffs to the park.
Park renovations are also meant to make it more accessible for individuals with disabilities and more sustainable.