MEMPHIS, Tenn.– If you haven’t made it, this weekend is your last chance to check out RiverPlay.
That’s the pop-up park on Riverside Drive, it offers skating, basketball and other games.
It was a place for families to hang out over the Summer.
“I come here every day,” said Artie Bafford.
He walked here with friends from south Memphis.
“Play basketball, skate, have fun, play chess, play all the games,” he said.
The city says he wasn’t the only one.
“We tracked waiver signatures and collected surveys and other data and we got thousands of visitors down here from all across Memphis based on zip code data,” said Maria Fuhrmann.
Fuhrmann represents Mayor Jim Strickland on the Fourth Bluff Project. She helped make the park come to life.
She says on busy weekends they would see around 300 people using it.
The park might be going away but parts will live on throughout downtown, a lot of the games will remain on the Riverfront.
As for the large planters, for now, you will see them on Mud Island.
There are other long term plans for them as well.
“The Grizzlies are planning to use them in one of their activation projects in south Memphis I think that might launch at the end of September,” explained Fuhrmann.
Attention is now shifting to the Cossit Library downtown, a more permanent public space.
Work to rehab the building, as part of the grant the city received, will start in November and reopen early 2018.
There will be upgrades inside, as well as the outside.
“There’s a wall we’re opening up and doing a staircase down into the entrance from Front Street. You know we want to improve the look of the Library and the streetscape.”
As for when you can drive on Riverside Drive again, they’re estimating in a few weeks, middle of the month.
