City still spending on Liberty Park debt, consultants, but construction remains stalled
As debt mounts, Memphis’ Liberty Park development fails to break ground. (Patrick Lantrip/The Daily Memphian)
The City of Memphis has spent $13.7 million over the past five years to bring a hotel, apartments and an entertainment venue to Liberty Park, as part of a bet that sports tourism could be an economic driver for the city.
But the money spent on site work, architecture, engineering, utilities, fencing, and consultants has yet to yield anything concrete. The land still sits empty.
This year, as the project remained stalled, costs continued to mount, and the city continued to pay a consulting firm $70,000 a month, plus travel expenses, to manage the project.
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Samuel Hardiman
Samuel Hardiman is an enterprise and investigative reporter who focuses on local government and politics. He began his journalism career at the Tulsa World in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he covered business and, later, K-12 education. Hardiman came to Memphis in 2018 to join the Memphis Business Journal, covering government and economic development. He then served as the Memphis Commercial Appeal’s city hall reporter and later joined The Daily Memphian in 2023. His current work focuses on Elon Musk’s xAI, regional energy needs and how Memphis and Shelby County government spend taxpayer dollars.
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