$2.5M Smith Park makeover begins; concerns cited

Agencies involved in the major renovation of downtown Jackson's Smith Park hope the change will turn the "rundown," "overgrown" and "uncomfortable" park into a place residents actually want to visit.

The concept rendering shows an open green space with bisecting sidewalks and large trees surrounding the city block. On Nov. 5, crews cut several mostly dying trees, beginning the first phase of the Downtown Jackson Partners park renovation. With help from community group Friends of Smith Park, DJP has been working on this proposal for at least three years.

An Oct. 12 memo from the Jackson Department of Parks and Recreations gave DJP "permission to clean, prune limbs, etc., at Smith Park."

While DJP President Ben Allen said his group has garnered support from the Legislature on the $2.5 million project, lawmakers have decided against allocating the necessary funds the last two years. Still, Allen said DJP is able to move forward for now with money it has raised from individuals and businesses.

"We can get phase one and phase two done with private funds, but we can't get the major stuff done without a funding source, either private or public," Allen said. "We've decided to start the project to get some momentum going."

There's no specific timeline on what will happen in each phase, Allen said, but DJP is working to get a cost estimate to replace the concrete ditches in the park, which Allen called a safety hazard. The plan is for those to be filled in with dirt and evened out. Once they obtain a cost estimate, they'll know how much they'll have to raise.

"We're just kind of cobbling this thing together at this point," Allen said.

Friends of Smith Park will be tasked with maintaining the newly designed park and plans to file for nonprofit status. The project presentation from February 2015 said the park "feels unsafe" and is "expensive to maintain." Robert Poore with Native Habitats is a consultant, and Madge Bemiss is the architect.

"It’s going to look a lot better and it’s going to be safer for everybody," said John Ditto, who chairs Friends of Smith Park.

The latest proposal projects a March grand opening. The Jackson City Council passed a resolution in March 2015 stating its support for "community efforts to improve the viability of Smith Park through renovations."

Allen is confident DJP will acquire funding to finish the job, but even if it doesn't, Allen said the trees had to come down anyway. "They were rotten," Allen said.

RELATED: Jackson preps Smith Park renovation, chops trees

When experts examined the park, Allen said, they determined that of the roughly 80 trees in the park, only 17 were totally healthy. DJP allocated $25,000 for the initial clearing, which included chopping down 32 trees.

Smith Park, 15 years older than Central Park in New York, is one of the oldest parks in the United States that is still continuously used, according to DJP. The park is a contributing property to the Smith Park Architectural District, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.

DJP did not, however, include preservation agencies like the Mississippi Department of Archives and History when creating its plans. Emails between Allen and Philip L. Walker of Nashville's The Walker Collaborative from 2014 show officials may not have found it necessary to include oversight agencies because the park had already been renovated in the early 1970s.

"We’re not talking about trees that were 100, 150, 200 years old," said Michael Rejebian, president of Jackson’s Downtown Neighborhood Association.

Walker suggested he had a conversation with MDAH Deputy State Historic Preservation Officer Ken P'pool.

"He agreed with me that, even though the park was listed on the National Register in the 1970s, that's also roughly the same time that the park was inappropriately transformed in a way to obliterate the original historic context. Thus, his preliminary opinion is that, with the possible exception of the pavilion, it can be treated as a blank slate with respect to a redesign," Walker wrote.

MDAH Historic Preservation Division Director Jim Woodrick said the agency should be involved in any plans to change a historic site, but trees are not necessarily protected just because they sit on land listed on the national register.

"We need to be involved when there are historic properties affected, whether that would be interpreted as trees or not, that’s kind of a hard thing to answer, but definitely there are some structures there that we need to be involved in the discussion about," Woodrick said.

Woodrick said he plans to set up a meeting with the city and DJP to flesh out the details.

Smith Park is not a local historic district or landmark, so it does not require review from the Jackson Historic Preservation Commission.

Allen cited crime as a factor behind the makeover, but not as the impetus for the recent trimming.

"We've had some untoward activity up there, some messy stuff going on up there," Allen said. "That’s not the reason we did this; that’s one of the reasons that the park needs to be changed."

Allen said the renovations are especially necessary as the opening of the new Mississippi Civil Rights Museum nears. He anticipates the park will be used in conjunction with the museum as a place for visitors to take a break and eat lunch.

Donna Yowell, Mississippi Urban Forest Council director, said she received several calls from residents concerned about the trees coming down. The council is a nonprofit and does not have any regulatory oversight over projects like the Smith Park renovation, but it did not support DJP's proposal.

"We recommended to Mr. Allen and others that an inventory of healthy trees should be taken and community service values placed on these trees and a less expensive redesign be used to renovate the park," Yowell said in an email. "If this scenario continues throughout Jackson, especially inner city and Ward 3, then there will be very little green infrastructure left."

Smith Park is in Councilwoman Margaret Barrett-Simon's Ward 7. Barrett-Simon told The Clarion-Ledger she was happy with DJP's proposed design.

Yowell acknowledged the need for improvements at the park but stressed the value of the existing trees and how they contribute to managing storm water run off, shade, property values and quality of life.

"Now that the trees are gone, it's even more critical that those improvements take place. Its just that other options could have been explored, and I don't know if those were considered," Yowell said.

Yowell's sentiment matches that of many community members, who expressed dismay at the tree removal on social media after Nov. 5.

"I would ask people complaining what they’ve done for this park in the last 10 years," Ditto said.

Contact Anna Wolfe at 601-961-7326 or awolfe@gannett.com. Follow @ayewolfe on Twitter.