Hopes Are High at Shelby Farms

Shelby Farms supporters are enjoying the official launch of a process that will put a new master plan in place. It will take a sustained effort to make it last, but right now excitement is surrounding the start of a contest to find a visionary for the 4,800- acre amenity.

The new nonprofit conservancy that manages most of the park is asking architecture and planning firms to list their qualifications to compete for the $450,000 contract.

The process was made possible by the Shelby County Commission’s establishment of a conservation easement last December, preserving the property for public recreational purposes.

Shelby Farms has been under attack for years by well-intentioned and not-so-well-intentioned proponents of the kind of commercial and residential development that would ruin the park’s esthetics and limit its recreational potential.

That won’t happen now, assuming the community provides the resources and energy needed to preserve the park in a condition that future generations can enjoy.

Park improvements won’t necessarily conflict with the preservation goal. But they shouldn’t proceed without careful attention to how they affect the natural environment of the park, a tapestry of open fields, wooded areas and lakes linked by a network of paved and unpaved trails.

That’s where a master plan comes in – hopefully one that doesn’t experience the same fate as planner Garrett Eckbo’s dust-gathering 1975 classic. Eckbo designed a plan for 3,500 acres of the park that preserved the area’s pastoral character for the most part, but left open the possibility of more active, income-producing uses in the future – golf courses, a zoo, restaurants and the like.

Only part of his vision became a reality, however, and public financing has failed to fulfill the park’s potential as a great urban recreational masterpiece. Under its new management, with a healthy infusion of private funds and a new master plan, the park could reach that goal.

Firms have until Oct. 10 to respond to the invitation to present their credentials. Three will be selected as finalists, presented with a $25,000 honorarium and given a chance to earn the contract by participating in an “Innovative Design Competition.”

The public will have a chance to view their plans from March 6- 26, when they will be on exhibit at the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library.

Public hearings are also planned.

Conservancy board member Barbara Hyde, chairman of the nonprofit agency’s master planning committee, promises a heavy reliance on public input in the planning process.

That’s as it should be. The history of Shelby Farms since its birth as a public amenity in 1960 is one of almost constant tension between public and private interests. The park should be preserved as an asset that the entire public can enjoy.

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Planning search begins

The start of a national contest leading to a master plan has put excitement in the air for park supporters.

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