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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: Frayser
One of Frayser’s most underutilized (or more accurately hardly used) assets is undergoing a much-needed transformation.
Rodney Baber Park on James Road was permanently altered after the 2011 floods that ravaged Shelby County. A once vibrant park now waits for the necessary adjustments to make Rodney Baber comparable or better than its previous version.
Like two other city-owned Frayser community assets, work on revitalizing the park is officially underway. Elected officials gathered at Rodney Baber on Monday, Oct. 18 to hold a groundbreaking ceremony celebrating the $7 million project’s next phase.
The new-look park will include soccer fields, a baseball diamond, fishing lake and walking trails, while Rodney Baber grows from 78 acres to 167 acres. The project’s estimated completion date is now March 2023.
Even though the new recreational activities are important, keeping the park intact is just as crucial for the future. Memphis-Shelby County Division of Planning and Development Director John Zeanah said the redesign includes taking on floodwater at the park’s lowest points and gearing the recreational facilities to the park’s highest elevations to prevent further flooding issues.
As mentioned earlier, the city is also investing $8 million in a new Ed Rice Community Center and $12 million in a new Frayser Library, with the latter set to be across the street from Rodney Baber.
Those three projects will not transform Frayser either alone or together, but they are steps toward revitalizing one of the city’s largest neighborhoods. There are those who remember their time at Rodney Baber fondly including Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland.
During Monday’s ceremony, Strickland jokingly remembered the many balls he hit that turned into “cans of corn” in his several seasons of softball playing at Rodney Baber.
The hope is the next generation of Memphians can one day reminiscence about their own memories at the renovated Rodney Baber once work there is finished.
More About Town:
 Joshua Moore organizes candles ahead of a vigil for slain USPS employee Demetria Dortch at Lewis-Davis Park in Orange Mound on Thursday, Oct. 20. (Ziggy Mack/Special to the Daily Memphian)
Mourners gathered at Lewis-Davis Park in Orange Mound on Wednesday evening, Oct. 20, to honor Demetria Dortch, one of the victims of the Oct. 12 shooting at the East Lamar Carrier Annex.
The new district lines will reflect a drop of 16,000 Memphians by the U.S. Census count and populations gains in three of the seven single-member City Council districts as well as drops in the head count in the other four districts.
“... With help from the city, we could create something like a Cooper-Young or an Overton Square area,” said John M. Howard Jr., leader of the ownership team that developed the lofts.
Each of the applicants EDGE’s finance committee will consider Wednesday seeks to restore blighted and abandoned buildings.
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