MEMPHIS, Tenn. — If you’ve lived in Memphis a few months or several years, you know there is an ongoing debate about what to do with Mud Island River Park.
Tuesday, Memphis City Council members quizzed representatives with the Memphis River Parks Partnership, the organization managing the city’s riverfront parks, about why money they earmarked for improvements is apparently still on the shelf.
MRPP is requesting city council move $3 million the city set aside two years ago for Mud Island, for use in the budget for Tom Lee Park, which recently underwent a $60 million renovation.
“I’d like to know why the money was just sitting there and not used for a long time,” asked Councilmember Rhonda Logan.
“We got about $5.1 million in those two budgets, and we’ve spent almost all of that without a general contractor, and we’ve saved money on each project,” said Carol Coletta, President and CEO of MRPP.
The MRPP says they have addressed safety, cosmetic improvements, and have been negotiating with both short-term and long-term users about the future of Mud Island along with its amphitheater and monorail.
“The monorail for some perspective tenants we’ve negotiated with is important. Others, it’s like, ‘No, we don’t need the monorail. We don’t want the monorail,'” Coletta said. “Operators of the amphitheaters are like, ‘We don’t want to facility back in 1982 condition. We want to bring it up to standard for an amphitheater today.'”
But with questions over money, Councilman Martavius Jones presented a resolution to reallocate $3 million in capital improvement plan funds for Mud Island Construction to other city projects such as fire station improvement, the Memphis parks and City Hall renovations.
“We’re at 18 months, and is there any type of expectation for a short term, long term? We had a presentation of a zip line company coming in to do something and possibility of it, and we could possibly use it to get it up and running to facilitate that,” Jones said.
“We’ve got more needs right now on the island, but also, we want to continue to be judicious and how we spend the funds,” Coletta said.
Councilmembers decided Tuesday to put a hold on their discussion about the resolution calling for the reallocation of money for Mud Island and tackle it in a couple of weeks.
