Church Street Park (Homeless) Park

[MidTenn1]

I saw a lot of activity this am at the Church Street Park across from the Library where construction equipment was being used to level the park. The trees have been removed and the planters are being leveled. There is construction fencing all around it.

A brief press release doesn't give much information:

Nashville, TN --- Metro Park officials announced today that Church Street Park, located at 600 Church Street, will close tomorrow morning for major landscape renovations. Renovations will include tree work, lighting, irrigation, and ground cover work. Park improvements, which have been planned for more than a month, are expected to be completed by September 22.

[Kamuda_Train]

If the reason for the drastic overhaul, to what was a nice little park, is to make it less accomodating to the throngs of homeless that congregate there, then I really wouldn't expect the City to say so, anyway.

[Lexy]

You hit the nail on the head, that's exactly the reason. I saw that the other day when I was walking to lunch - I had to kind of chuckle to see the homeless looking on angrily as the woodchipper ground the park trees into oblivion. the only way it will not be a homeless park is if they make it into a Japanese rock garden - otherwise they will just hide in the bushes...

[Hankster]

This must be great news for all those wishing to live downtown in the Church St. area, and especially good news to Tony Giarratana.

[Otenyuda]

They chopped all the trees down to take away the shade! LOL!!!!

If they're into physical deterrants they should replace all the plants with cactus...

[The Tot Pack]

from what i read in newspapers

they tore the park down "for health hazard reasons"... such as "bird feces" as well as "rats scouring in the bushes"

well i was kinda sad to see it go cause it was a a very nice little park... but if it helps deter homelessness then better off

[barakat]

Bird poop was all over the place. It was disgusting.

[Rural King]

So will a park remain there in some fashion? Or will it be be some other sort of public space?

[barakat]

^ I believe it will be a park, but competely revamped. I walked by today and in places, the area has been cleared well below street level.

[Nashville_maestro]

I read the article in The Tennesean and that was sad when the homeless person was quoted as saying "the city doesnt want us here". As if they didnt have hard enough lives..... it's still going to be a park but it wont have trees so as to get rid of bird droppings. It will still have the nice fountain though which is good. I dont really understand why the park needs shade though. Church street is covered in shade from the buildings!

[jice]

Looks like the 'homeless park' is back...

[smeagolsfree]

Its not near as bad as it was. Before you would see 20 to 50 homeless folks sleeping, eating, cussing, and littering before the new park went in.

[Rural King]

Wow that almost doesn't look like a park....actually it almost looks like a vacant lot with grass on it. No wait, it does look like a vacant lot with grass on it .

The old park was nice and looked like a park, unfortunately its hard to create and enforce tough panhandling and loitering laws so that nice aspect had to go to deter loitering (I mean birds...or whatever the excuse was). Interesting world we live in sometimes.

[jice]

There is actually that small fountain in the middle, which you can't really see in that photo. Pretty sure its the same fountain that was there before.

But yeah, still doesn't seem like a very useful park at this point in time... the # of homeless has decreased, but there are still enough around to drive the rest of us away from using it...

[ATLBrain]

What used to be there? Was it an historic building? Did it need to be torn down? Who tore it down? That's a good example of horrible planning and/or land use/reuse.

[smeagolsfree]

That is a question for Dave. I would bet that he knows the answer.

[OrlandoMagic3]

opd is doing a good job.

[barakat]

That end of the block was lined with nice, old buildings in the 2 to 5 story range. They burned sometime in the early 90's, I believe. I remember seeing them burn live on the news. Too bad, eh? I think the buildings should have been rebuilt; the park just erodes what little is left of the streetscape on Church.

[smeagolsfree]

I guess that Metro owns the land? That would have to be the case since they put a park there. If there are plans to put a building there then they would have to auction it off.