Tom Lee Park — Update to Memphis City Council
This is a transcription of the presentation of Carol Coletta, President and CEO of Memphis River Parks Partnership, delivered to the Parks Committee of the Memphis City Council on July 20, 2021.
Good morning, and thank you for this opportunity to bring you up to date on Tom Lee Park and the parking associated with it.
This morning, we have very good news to bring you. Yesterday, the Mayor’s Riverfront Steering Committee has issued its final approval for construction documents for the Cutbank Bluff, Tom Lee Park and Riverside Drive.
[The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued the section 408 permit for Tom Lee Park on the afternoon of July 20, 2021]
This has been three years in the making. I want to publicly thank Chief Doug McGowen who chaired the Mayor’s Riverfront Steering Committee responsible for reviewing and approving design, the U.S. Army Corps for its cooperation throughout, Memphis in May for its participation in the Committee’s deliberations, our design team who has taken every challenge and improved the park at every turn, and you, for your support.
You have some questions about parking for the park, and I will address those questions. But I also want to show you some of the latest images of what your support is building for the people of Memphis and Shelby County.
Remember that what we’re building is the result of the Memphis Riverfront Concept completed in 2017. Since then we’ve built River Garden, the 5-mile River Line, and Fourth Bluff Park.
From the start, we’ve been as concerned about connecting the riverfront to downtown and the neighborhoods beyond downtown as we have about connecting the riverfront north and south. Both are critical if we are to leverage our considerable public investments in these assets to get the returns our city needs.
This is where it all started.
Here’s a birds-eye view of what we’re building on top of that berm.
[Visit tomleepark.org to see images and renderings of the full design.]
When polled by Chism Strategies in January about the park and its features, 90% of all Memphians say they are more likely to visit the riverfront when the park is complete. (There was also notable enthusiasm among people living in underinvested neighborhoods the form a crescent around downtown.)
Memphians are excited about the park we’re building. We are finally connecting our riverfront safely to downtown — the way modern and walkable cities are now being designed.
Designing a 30-acre riverfront park is a process. This one has been underway for almost three years, and like all projects of this magnitude, it’s had lots of changes and tweaks along the way as design gets more detailed.
The design has been reviewed and approved at every stage in 7 meetings since April, 2020, by the Riverfront Steering Committee, chaired by Chief McGowen. That committee was established by the Mayor’s Mediation Agreement signed in December, 2019. And to make sure extra care was taken to make the park great for festivals, the Operations Director of Memphis in May has also had 8 additional meetings with the design team to work through details to support the festival.
We value the specific input from Memphis in May to ensure the park is festival-ready not only for Memphis in May and also for many other events.
Each stage of the design has been shared with the public and the press.
Not only is Memphis getting a fantastic new park, we will have more accessible and convenient parking than ever before.
Consider the amount of parking within two blocks of the park.
The new Downtown Mobility Center, with almost 1000 spaces is 2 blocks from the park’s Beale Street entrance. The MLGW garage, with more than 1000 spaces is newly accessible to the park due to our new Cutbank Bluff entrance. And Billy Orgel’s garage at Butler and Tennessee, with 350 spaces is right at the park’s Butler entrance.
There is also a lot of city metered on-street parking all through downtown, especially early morning, early evening and weekends when we get most of our visitors.
Plus there are 68 parallel parking spaces adjacent to the park on the west side of Riverside Drive.
Riverside Drive will be four lanes with no median, as stipulated in the mayor’s mediation agreement.
The only change in the parking that’s been made since the public workshop on Riverside Drive held 10 months ago is to the parking on the east side of Riverside Drive opposite the park. After consultation with the City, parking on the east side of the street was removed to allow for a four lane street, to ensure safety of families crossing the street, and to stay in budget. Parking adjacent to the park remains, in compliance with the mediation agreement.
That change was clearly shown in our public presentation in April at the end of design development.
We continue to explore ways to make sure parking adjacent to the park serves Memphians, especially those with disabilities, in the best possible way. Long-term parking should be discouraged, but the City has no plan to charge for parking.
I want to also lift up the need for sidewalks to connect the neighborhoods nearby. In May, Memphis River Parks organized volunteers to cut back the overgrowth and haul off trash from the six blocks of Vance that connect South City to the new park entrance to the Cutbank Bluff. We were preparing the sidewalks for images of famous South Memphians selected by neighborhood residents for a Walk of Fame along Vance to the river.
But on a number of blocks, the sidewalks are in such disrepair, they can’t be safely walked on, much less painted on. Isolating people in the poorest zip code in the state from a riverfront that may be the only vacation kids in that zip code ever get just because there is no safe way to walk six blocks seems like a big miss.
We still hope to get the Vance sidewalks repaired as South City continues to grow.
The work on Tom Lee and our emphasis on pedestrian connections are consistent with both of the city’s recently completed long-term plans, both of which engaged thousands of Memphians in their preparation.
Memphis 3.0 prioritized walking as the first priority mode of transportation.
Build Downtown promotes walkability and pedestrian connections to Tom Lee Park.
We are trying to make good on both of those promises.
Together we are building a great new Tom Lee Park that will be an important quality of life asset for Memphians and economic development asset for the entire region.
