Scott Blake, longtime impresario in the Victorian Village community, essentially called a party late in the afternoon on Thursday, Sept. 5, in the threadbare park across Adams Street from now-closed Juvenile Court.

The place, just over an acre of spotty grass, became a city park by default when five of the historic mansions were torn down in the early 1960s, the kind of urban renewal that still hurts his heart.

Blake’s thing now — and the reason for the party — is that the park, he says, could be so much more. With food, live music and afternoon sunshine, he set up a brainstorming session for neighbors and people who work in the area to think out loud about what might be possible for the land.

It happens to be in a corridor that soon will be bike lane for cyclists, from East Memphis and beyond, wanting to get Downtown and perhaps to Big River Crossing just beyond.

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“Our two overarching goals are to connect the park to what’s happening on the Better Jefferson plan, because we expect hundreds of cyclists coming down here every day once the biking improvements are done,” said Blake, executive director of Victorian Village Inc. Community Development Corp.

Better Jefferson, a plan to narrow the lanes of traffic on Jefferson, and add protected bike lanes and enhanced pedestrian areas, is in the final engineering stages. With the potential of significantly more foot and bike traffic, Blake imagines the park could easily be a rest stop and an invitation to linger in Victorian Village.

“This area has the most incredible collection of 19th Century architecture between here and Natchez, maybe New Orleans,” he told the gathering.

Without wanting to color too much of what the group might suggest, he was already envisioning the park as ground zero for a series of walking tours in the neighborhood, which has 15 historic buildings.

“You could pick architectural history, or you could pick a ghost tour,” he says. “There’s all sorts of things that you could begin here. The walkers could scan a code on a sign and go to whatever tour they’d like.”

The renovation, whatever it will be, has already received letters of support from Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital, City of Memphis and the Memphis Medical District Collaborative. The project, so far spearheaded by Blake, has gathered $10,500 in contributions — $5,500 from the City Council and the rest from Community Lift and the Downtown Memphis Commission.

Landscape architectural design firm Ritchie Smith Associates has done preliminary work on the space, now a little-used park with the worn park benches scattered loosely around the perimeter, the trappings of a plan the city started more than 30 years ago and didn’t finish.

“The Memphis Park Commission did a beautiful plan for this park with an oval concrete trail,” Smith told the about 30 people who attended, sitting around tables where designers were ready to record the ideas and sketch them on a big map in the center for visual bearing.

“The benches would make more sense if you could see that plan,” he said.

What exists now is a fenced-in park, bordered by an alley and a little-used concrete parking lot to the south and Juvenile Court to the immediate north, and situated roughly between Manassas and Neely to the east and west.

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The land is owned by the Memphis Housing Authority. If nothing more than trees and grass is added, the city would continue to maintain it. If the improvements include ornamental plantings — flowers and shrubbery — that would require more care and funding, Blake said.

The nature of the neighborhood, which includes the new, 400-unit Orleans Station development on Jefferson, suggests passive use — a place for yoga gatherings, to walk dogs and take a break from work, he said.

Jason Rogers, who owns the Edge District HotWorx, can imagine a small pond, maybe with a fountain, edged with flowers in the middle of the park.

“I like the idea of it being a quiet space,” he said.

“Because the park is small, it could be a place of beauty,” said Eldra White, executive director of Memphis City Beautiful, located in the Massey House across the street.

She noted it wouldn’t take that much money to provide the extra care, including watering, for such a small space. 

The symbol of what is possible is 4.5-acre Morris Park and the metamorphosis that transformed it from a derelict space across Poplar Avenue from St. Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral, starting in 2009.

It’s less than a five-minute walk away between Manassas and Orleans.

Blake was in on that project too.

“It was a terrible place. There was a lot of crime, prostitution,” he says.

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That park, redeveloped by Memphis Parks, opened about a year ago. Today, it is maintained in partnership with the city and the MMDC, which means it has two sets of eyes watching and stepping in daily to clean up the litter.

“There’s been a lot of great activation there. The city, LeBonheur and other health-care providers are using the park for the first time with weekend events,” said Smith, whose team designed the remake, including its small amphitheater and lighting from 30 faux-antique streetlights.

At least one developer in the crowd quietly said he couldn’t understand investing in the park, when two already exist in the neighborhood — Health Sciences Park and Morris Park.

He did not address the group, nor did he wish to be named.

The parcel, he said, would be more valuable to the city if were sold, developed and generated property taxes.