SOUTHERN INDIANA — When you talk parks and great park design, it’s difficult to have a meaningful conversation without mentioning Frederick Olmsted.
Olmsted was the 19th Century parks designer who designed Central Park in New York City and many parks in the Louisville parks system, including Cherokee and Shawnee. Those parks have endured for more than a century, and have inspired designers across the country.
One of those designers is Dan Jones, CEO of 21st Century Parks. Jones is the mind behind the 4,000-acre Parklands at Floyds Fork in Jefferson County, Ky., and soon, Jones will be making his mark in Southern Indiana as he helps lead an update of the masterplan for the Ohio River Greenway, one that leaders hope will give the Greenway Olmsted-esque staying power.
“As a Kentuckian looking across the river, it’s a really cool project,” Jones said. “I love parks of all kinds, and the 21st Century Parks are going to take all kinds of shapes and forms. They’re not all the traditional sports park or the big pastoral park.”
The Paul Ogle Foundation is driving the effort to update the plan and spur progress on the Greenway. Ogle President Kent Lanum said the foundation was approached about making a donation to the Greenway, but took interest in having more direct involvement after seeing the potential of the project.
“This is one of those projects that could be transformative for the community,” Lanum said.
The Ogle Foundation is going to directly lead a group of community leaders and other members of the public to update the plan, Lanum said. The group’s members will be revealed soon, and “refresh” of the master plan will be presented to the Greenway Commission by the end of first quarter 2015.
“It’s going to be a refresh in the sense that it’s going to be a new look at it,” Lanum said. “We’re going to probably call this Greenway 2040, because it’s a 25-year view. It’s meant to give the Greenway Commission an opportunity to take a look at what they’ve done thus far and what they could go to in the next 25 years.”
The Ogle Foundation and the Greenway Commission have signed a memorandum of understanding to allow Ogle to pursue its plans on the refresh, and that’s good news as far as Greenway Commission Chairman Philip Hendershot is concerned.
“We are really excited about that,” Hendershot said. “The agreement by Ogle to fund this masterplan refresh is such a huge gift to the three communities, and not just monetarily, but for the interest that it brings to the project, and the expertise — especially the expertise that’s represented by 21st Century Parks.
“Those folks are developing a linear parks system in Jefferson County that’s looking to be a national, if not an international model. Having their expertise is really exciting.”
The Parklands at Floyds Fork is 21st Century Parks’ primary project, but the nonprofit organization needs funding mechanisms to make progress on its work in eastern Jefferson County, Ky. By offering consulting services on the Greenway project, 21st Century Parks can raise funds for the Parklands and benefit the Greenway at the same time.
Lanum demurred when asked what the Ogle Foundation’s financial stake in the refresh will be, but conceded that the donation will be “at least a quarter-million dollars.”
Those funds will be used in part to pay 21st Century Parks, conduct the collection of public input and hire what Lanum hopes will be a “world-renowned kind of designer to take a look at this project, too, and get a lot of feedback.”
The designer and 21st Century Parks will work together once the designer is hired, Jones said. They’ll have plenty to work with.
“The landscape over there is incredible,” Jones said. “You’ve got these two beautiful downtowns in Jeffersonville and New Albany. You’ve got the Clarksville waterfront in between, with the Falls of the Ohio and the [George Rogers] Clark Cabin. The Indiana [Department of Natural Resources] has about a 100-acre forest, and then of course you’ve got the connection to Louisville on the Big Four Bridge.
“We’re building a big park on a different landscape in eastern Louisville, but that kind of richness and that variety of both natural and historic and economic resources, I think is quite unique.”
The people that have driven progress on the Greenway so far deserve a lot of credit for their accomplishments, Jones said, but there are opportunities to make the Greenway even better.
“Because it’s so developed on that side of the river, to be able to route and connect the pieces as they have done is quite the challenge,” Jones said. “Not only is there this great opportunity to take that to the next level, there should also be recognition of the really great work that the commission has done to date, because there was a big challenge and they did a great job.”
One of the challenges will be meshing other plans for the area — such as Jeffersonville’s plans for bicycle paths throughout the city and Clarksville’s West Riverfront masterplan with the Greenway plan — Hendershot said.
“We’d like to get the Greenway masterplan more integrated into other planning efforts that are going on in the three communities,” Hendershot said.