Urban Residents Association Approaches Parks Board on Church Street Park

New business on the November 6 Metro Parks Board Meeting Agenda includes two requests from the Urban Residents Association (Downtown):

• Ms. Amy Walters, representing a diverse group of downtown businesses and residents, requests permission from the Board to establish a friends group for Church Street Park.


• Mr. Joshua Smith, owner of The Standard at The Smith House and representing the Urban Residents Association, the Nashville Street Life Project, the Nashville Downtown Partnership and the Downtown Library, requests permission from the Board to begin fundraising to pay for programming and safety in Church Street Park until the Friends of Church Street Park Group is in place.

Church Street Park is the small "pocket park" across from the Downtown library that was levelled a while back and is now currently being rebuilt. Despite the fact that Metro cited health concerns about birds as its reason for reconstructing the park, there were questions raised about whether the continuous homeless presence there was the reason for Parks reconstructing the park.

After reading accounts of URA debates over homeless issues Downtown, I got the impression that the association was divided on what to do with Church Street Park. Hopefully, establishing a "friends group" will help them be proactive on dealing with the problems around the park.