No other Nashville park has the drawing power of Centennial, with its full-size replica of The Parthenon. But the rest of the green space and its event venues needed attention, said Metro Parks Director Tommy Lynch.
“The intense development of the area around Centennial Park has really taken its toll,” he said. “It’s still a beautiful park, and it’s our signature park, but at the same time it’s growing smaller by the minute.”
The park hasn’t actually lost any land, but Lynch says it feels that way with more people flocking to it.
Now they’ll have other areas to visit as the city debuts the park’s new features on Thursday. It’s the first of six phases of upgrades.
The grass lawn near West End Avenue hadn’t offered much to do before, but now features winding garden paths and seating for performances.
And what had been the underground Cockrill Spring stream has been unearthed and allowed to meander. It had been hidden for about a century.
The flowing water also helps with another big change: eliminating the rampant algae from Lake Watauga, a process known as
“daylighting
.
“
Metro Parks also created a new parking lot for The Parthenon, and an events lawn on its east side.
The park’s reopening ends two years of construction that cordoned off several areas. It’s the first completed project from a $6 million master plan created in 2011.
On Air - 90.3 WPLN-FM