Lakeshore Park, Inc. Pursues an Ambitious Slate of Improvements for the Park

In Perspectives by Joe Sullivanleave a COMMENT

The Lakeshore Master Plan includes eight sectors of development over 186 acres.City of Knoxville

The Lakeshore Master Plan includes eight sectors of development over 186 acres.

When Mayor Madeline Rogero delivers her city budget address today at Lakeshore Park, she can point with pride to the $7.2 million that the city has invested over the past two years to prepare this magnificent site for adornment as a city park.

Demolition has removed more than a dozen of the antiquated buildings that were vestiges of Lakeshore’s prior incarnation as a mental health institute. Extensive brush removal has cleared vistas to the lakefront that had been obscured. And KUB is underway with $2 million in city-funded sewer, water, and electric utility enhancement to support the myriad new amenities that are envisioned for Lakeshore’s verdant 186-acre grounds.

While the city will continue to own the property, responsibility for making Lakeshore into the crown jewel of Knoxville’s parks that it’s destined to become rests with a not-for-profit entity, Lakeshore Park, Inc., under a long-standing management agreement. And Lakeshore Park, Inc. is now poised to launch one of the largest private fundraising campaigns that Knoxville has ever seen.

The goal, according to founding board member Tom McAdams, is to have $25 million committed by June 30, 2016. And even that is just for phase one of a master plan whose full-fledged implementation could run much higher, extending over many years. But McAdams already has specific target dates for the completion of what he’s calling Phase 1A, whose total cost approaches $15 million. These include:

• The Hank Rappe Accessible Playground that’s due to open in July at a cost of $1.2 million with lots of specialized equipment to meet the needs of “children of different abilities,” as McAdams puts it.

• A pier and kayak launch along Fourth Creek in the park’s southwestern corner coming late this fall at a cost of $600,000, including one of several extensions of the park’s walking trails that will double their total length to about 4 miles.

• A covered River Pavilion overlooking, yes, the river that will seat 400 for dinner and be supported by a landscaped pervious parking area for more than 100 vehicles and many adornments. The target date for completion is summer, 2016, at a cost of $3 million.

• Renovation of a quaint chapel that is one of five mental-health institute buildings that have been preserved (along with its historic hilltop administration building, a storage facility, and two cottages). The chapel, which seats 150, could be used for weddings and funerals and, because it has a stage, for performances and recitals. New wings on either side of the preserved old chapel will offer meeting rooms and dressing rooms. This, too, is due to be completed by the summer of 2016 at a cost of about $1 million.

• Yet another pavilion, nearer to the Lyons View Drive entrance to the park, will be bounded by what McAdams expects to become more extensive gardens in what he terms “the passive area of the park.” The relatively small pavilion will be adjoined by a large open terrace that can hold several hundred for picnics or other gatherings, supported by another 100 pervious parking spaces. Target date for completion: spring of 2017 at a cost of $3 million.

Other features due to be completed in this time frame include a pier that will jut out over the Tennessee River in the park’s southwestern corner and three new multipurpose playing fields that will complement the six baseball and four soccer fields that Knox Youth Sports has overseen for many years.

The $15 million needed for these features, let alone the $25 million overall fundraising goal, seems enormously ambitious. But the capital campaign will be chaired by McAdams’ law partner, Caesar Stair, who also chaired the campaign that raised $11 million to build the Knoxville Museum of Art, an equally remarkable sum 25 years ago. Jimmy and Dee Haslam are co-chairs of a “major gifts” committee. And Lakeshore Park, Inc., has recently retained its first full-time employee, Cardin Bradley, as director of development. Bradley comes on board from the Boys and Girls Clubs of East Tennessee, which is in the midst of its own $14 million campaign for additional facilities.

As McAdams sees it, the city’s financial role going forward will be to provide supportive infrastructure, including more utilities and repaving the park’s roadways, most of which are in sore need of it. The city is also in the midst of a $1.1 million renovation of the historic Administration Building that will serve as headquarters for the Department of Parks and Recreation as well as Lakeshore Park, Inc.’s own staff.

Capital campaign literature and perhaps a kickoff event will be forthcoming shortly. In the meantime, anyone who is interested in being supportive should visit lakeshoreparkknoxville.org or contact Cardin Bradley at 865-801-1000.

The public owes a big debt to the state and the city, going back to Gov. Ned McWherter and Mayor Victor Ashe, for agreeing to dedicate the Lakeshore property—that’s probably worth at least $30 million—for use as a park upon the closing of the mental health institute. And the public should be equally grateful to and supportive of Lakeshore Park, Inc.’s efforts to fulfill this wonderful site’s full potential.

Joe Sullivan is the former owner and publisher of Metro Pulse (1992-2003) as well as a longtime columnist covering local politics, education, development, business, and tennis. His new column, Perspectives, covers much of the same terrain.

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