Nashville Mayor Wraps Up $100 Million Park Improvement Plan

While Mayor Herenton suggests the sale of Memphis parks, Nashville is one of many cities investing in their parkland to make their city more competitive in the knowledge-based economy. Here's a recent article from the Nashville Tennesseean that updates the efforts of their mayor to improve Nashville parks:

Mayor Bill Purcell paid a rare visit to the Metro Parks Board Tuesday, urging members to finish all started projects within the next 22 months – the remainder of his term.

Purcell praised the board for its work and said Roy Wilson is the ideal parks director for Nashville.

“Twenty-two months is plenty of time for me and you to complete most everything we have in front of us right now,” Purcell said.

Metro Parks just entered the second phase of its master plan implementation. This year’s capital improvement money totaled $36 million, with $25 million dedicated to the continuation of improvements and new projects recommended in the master plan, $6 million to do deferred and ongoing maintenance projects, and $5 million for the Nashville Zoo.

Under Purcell’s administration, Metro Parks received $27.3 million in capital improvement funding for year one of the master plan’s implementation (in addition to $6.5 million for deferred maintenance projects) and $23.8 million for year two (plus $3.2 million for deferred maintenance).

“We’re not far from $100 million for capital improvements for parks in Nashville,” Purcell said.