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Welcome to About Town, where we take a deeper dive into one neighborhood each week while also highlighting the latest news, developments and back stories from Memphis’ neighborhoods. This week’s focus: Raleigh-Frayser
The Raleigh-Frayser area is receiving some much-needed TLC with the improvements of John F. Kennedy and Rodney Baber parks, among other projects.
The most recent groundbreaking, at Kennedy Park on Raleigh Lagrange in Raleigh, occurred Monday, Nov. 1 when city and county officials gathered to announce the changes to the recreation area.
Four soccer fields will replace the existing softball fields that attracted ball players in the past, including Mayor Jim Strickland and park designer Ritchie Smith. But, Strickland said, softball is only popular with people who have gray hair. Soccer is what’s trending these days. The 330-acre park will also receive new parking and security lights.
For the full story: Groundbreaking paves way for Kennedy Park improvements
Both the Kennedy and Rodney Baber parks have had fewer visitors in recent years due to flooding issues brought on by the “Great Flood of 2011.” Land in both parks will be raised and regraded to address these problems.
The two park projects, as well as Big Creek in Millington, fall under the Shelby County Resilience Grant funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The largest grant in Shelby County history, the HUD funds provided the county $60 million for the three projects.
Shelby County joins 13 other communities, including New York City and New Orleans, to receive a combined $1 billion from HUD’s Disaster Resilience Grant.
Design plans for Kennedy Park were dreamt up by Kimley-Horn, lead consultant and engineer, and Ritchie Smith Associates, principal park designer and landscape architect. Smith said hammering down plans for the park has taken six years.
Construction at Kennedy began in September. Martin Carodine of Precise Construction Works hopes work will be completed in a year.
Representatives hope Kennedy Park will thrive once again as the recreational hub for people of all backgrounds and that the project will prove to residents of Raleigh and Shelby County that the county and city are working together to bring improvements to the community.
Carodine is also spearheading construction on Rodney Baber, which will receive new soccer fields, a baseball diamond, a fishing lake and walking trails. The park will grow from 78 acres to 167 with the purchase of nearby land. Construction on that is already underway and is estimated to be completed by 2023.
Other projects in the Raleigh-Frayser neighborhood include the Ed Rice Community Center and the new Frayser Library, located across the road from Rodney Baber.
“I gotta tell you, based on everything we see around this area of North Shelby, Raleigh is coming back,” county Mayor Lee Harris said.
More from About Town:
 Community organizers march down Beale Street on Tuesday, Nov. 2, to honor those who have been killed by gun violence in Memphis. (Patrick Lantrip/Daily Memphian)
Protesters against gun violence marched through the streets of Downtown Memphis on the Day of the Dead, a Mexican holiday where the dead are honored and remembered. Those who took part in the march said they are tired of the gun violence in the city.
In 2002, an AutoZone employee new to Memphis began running for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital – and he’s never stopped.
About 1,000 trick-or-treaters strolled through Memphis Botanic Garden Saturday. As children gathered candy, they met costumed volunteers like “Professor Fang” and “Indiana Bones,” who taught them about nature.
The UTHSC Health Hub is the first of what they hope will be a series of hubs in neighborhoods where access to medical care is low and chronic disease rates run high.
 A ribbon is cut outside the UTHSC Health Hub at 534 N. Second St. The Health Hub, a UTHSC first, is a drop-in clinic, of sorts, focusing on obesity, hypertension and diabetes that the college of medicine hopes will become an entry point to primary care in underserved parts of the city. (Brad Vest/Special to the Daily Memphian)
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