Trust for Public Land in Tennessee - 2022

Tennessee

THERE IS SO MUCH TO BE PROUD OF IN 2022 AND MORE TO LOOK FORWARD TO IN THE YEAR AHEAD

A letter from TPL’s Tennessee volunteer leadership committee

Thanks to your dedicated support, Trust for Public Land is helping Tennessee communities to reclaim the outdoors and improve quality of life for generations to come.

This year we celebrated the opening of the South Chickamauga Creek Greenway, a 12-mile network of trails and parks from the Tennessee River to Camp Jordan. We advanced the Alton Park Connector, reclaiming disused rail lines to connect communities to new and revitalized parks. We are rescuing a “fairy forest” in East Nashville. We launched new, inspiring visions for the future of outdoor access in Tennessee and beyond with our new Chattanooga Community Schoolyards™ program. And we focused on connecting communities in Northwest Georgia and Southeast Tennessee.

These are victories for Tennessee communities and testament to the power of your generosity. Because of you, we are closing the outdoor equity gap, improving health and education outcomes, protecting neighborhoods from the impacts of climate change, and connecting everyone to the joys and benefits of the outdoors.

We are grateful for the opportunity to share these successes with you. Thank you for being part of our TPL community.

With gratitude,

Franklin Farrow

Former Chair, Tennessee Volunteer Leadership Committee

Caroline Walker Chair, Tennessee Volunteer Leadership Committee

TENNESSEE BY THE NUMBERS 72 active or completed projects

22,148 ACRES PROTECTED

people with improved 10-minute walk park access

Lockeland Springs Park, East Nashville, TN

© ERIN KICE

Preserving a magical “fairy forest”

Last year, we began a partnership with the residents of East Nashville to save and expand Lockeland Springs Park . Known to children in the community as the “fairy forest” for its many magical and fairy-themed artworks tucked between trees and rocks, Lockeland Springs Park was a forested oasis of spring-fed streams—a perfect setting for play, learning, and exploration. After it was devastated by a tornado in 2020, we answered residents’ call to expand Lockeland Springs Park and protect the surrounding area from private development.

Located in a dense residential district just three miles from downtown Nashville, Lockeland Springs Park has become a rallying point for the entire community. After the tornado decimated their beloved outdoor sanctuary, neighbors quickly united to repair the damage, planting 350 new large trees and sprawling wildflower meadows to heal both the park and the community. So when the adjacent property came under risk of development, they understood the vital importance of protecting their outdoor spaces.

Thanks to your support, TPL secured $1.6 million to purchase 3.9 acres of adjacent land. We are currently working through the public acquisition process with Metro Nashville for this expansion of Lockeland Springs Park and to permanently protect this magical place, ensuring that it continues to nurture the community.

And we are not stopping there. Together with residents and partners—including the Friends of Lockeland Spring Park and the TennGreen Land Conservancy—we are working to repair the damage from the 2020 tornado and develop an extended network of trails and greenways.

People had comforted themselves in the face of all the other development with Lockeland Springs Park.

‘At least we’ll always have our magical fairy forest,’ we thought… And then we lost our park as we knew it to the tornado… It felt like a park expansion was more important than ever. We couldn’t bear the thought of losing this potential.”

Noam Pikelny Lockeland Springs resident

Lockeland Springs Park, East Nashville, TN

© ERIN KICE

Local and regional greenways

For decades, TPL has helped Chattanooga residents steadily grow the city’s trail system, transforming the bones of its industrial past into a thriving greenway network that has sparked a remarkable urban renaissance. We look forward to seeing families using the trail to bike, hike, walk, and relax as they take in the beauty of Tennessee’s natural environment. Thank you so much for your sustaining support of these incredible efforts.

SOUTH CHICKAMAUGA CREEK GREENWAY

A project 28-years in the making, the 12-mile South Chickamauga Creek Greenway is now complete!

This greenway will forever change the way Chattanooga residents connect with nature and each other. It offers a world of outdoor recreation, allowing visitors to walk, run, bike, and roll along the ADA-accessible trail. Over 30,000 people live within a mile of the completed greenway, including more than 400 people living in

Cromwell Hills, a low-income housing development managed by the Chattanooga Housing Authority, who were previously the most disconnected neighborhood in all of Chattanooga with limited bus service and no safe walking or biking paths.

In June 2022, we celebrated the closing of the last mile gap in the trail with a series of events aimed to connect everyone to the trail in new ways: geocaching, bike rides, hikes, and a family scavenger hunt and ice cream social followed by a ribbon cutting celebration. Although the events are over, the trail is here to stay, serving as a linear park and connecting communities to downtown.

We hope you will get out and enjoy the trail as well.

WHITE OAK CONNECTOR

Capitalizing on the successful completion of the South Chickamauga Greenway, we turn our attention to building trails to expand neighborhood access to the outdoors.

White Oak Park Picture Day invites community members to see themselves as part of their community and park.

© BROOKE BRAGGER

In March 2022, we broke ground on the nearly one-mile-long Stringer’s Ridge to White Oak Connector Trail. And we are excited to share that the trail construction is complete. The community is able to journey from Stringer’s Ridge directly—and safely—to the expansive White Oak Park without ever having to cross a main road. Now we turn our attention to trailside amenities informed by residents through a community design workshop.

Other South Chattanooga parks and trails projects in the works include the Alton Park Connector, Crabtree Farm–East Lake Connector, and Southside Community Park . These projects will improve access to parks, trails, and outdoor spaces for recreation and exercise, transportation, economic revitalizations, and community building in Chattanooga’s urban core.

CHICK CHATT LOOP

A visionary trail for the region’s future

Building outward from the 25-mile Tennessee Riverpark–South Chickamauga Creek Greenway network, we are exploring an ambitious interstate regional trail system. This effort will leverage TPL’s decades of experience and community partnerships to create the Chick Chatt Loop trail system that spans Tennessee and Georgia. This visionary trail system will begin at the southern end of the Riverpark and South Chickamauga Creek Greenway in Chattanooga and travel south across the state border, turning east through Chickamauga, Georgia, running along the creek south of the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park before curving back north to Camp Jordan. This looping trail will connect countless urban, suburban, and rural communities to the region’s amazing outdoor destinations, historic sites, and new economic opportunities.

TOP: South Chickamauga Creek Greenway is now open for explorers! © BROOKE BRAGGER

BOTTOM: Families can now hike from Stringer’s Ridge to White Oak Park. © MANDY RHODEN

COMING SOON: Community Schoolyards™ in Chattanooga

Parks are essential for healthy, equitable communities. Yet 100 million people in America—including 28 million children—do not have a park within a 10-minute walk of home. That number includes 60 percent of Chattanooga, an astounding number for a city known as an outdoor destination.

Community schoolyards are the single greatest opportunity to improve park access. Almost 20 million people live within a 10-minute walk of a public school. It is a common-sense, cost-effective solution to empower communities and improve health and education, park equity, and climate resilience. TPL’s community school yards are a low-cost, high-impact solution to close the outdoor equity gap for thousands of children and families in Chattanooga, requiring relatively small investments of time and resources to deliver vibrant spaces that create equity, help children learn, foster environmental stewardship, and strengthen the entire community.

However, less than five percent of the nearly 100,000 public schools in the U.S. are rich in green spaces and

LAND AND PEOPLE LAB

The Land and People Lab at TPL uses evidence to increase the impact of our on-the-ground work and spark a national movement for parks and public land. We inform policies and practices, build partnerships, and share resources to expand the many benefits of nature and the outdoors. Locally, the Lab provides resources like decision support tools that help us identify schools that stand to benefit most from our community schoolyard transformations.

TPL has transformed over 300 community schoolyards across the country.

© JENNA STAMM

open to the community after hours. We aim to change that by working hand-in-hand with students, teachers, parents, and neighbors to transform schoolyards into public parks after school hours and on weekends.

In Chattanooga, we have launched a pilot program to bring community schoolyards to three schools. Potential sites include East Side Elementary, Clifton Hills Elementary, and Barger Elementary.

PARK EQUITY ACCELERATOR

The City of Chattanooga has entered into a partnership with TPL’s 10-Minute Walk Park Equity Accelerator, a new initiative designed to expand residents’ access to parks. TPL will help the city identify resources and sustain high-quality inclusive community engagement and decision-making to maximize health, climate, community, and equity outcomes in parks planning.

Great partners for great parks

Chris McKee, Executive Vice President of McKee Foods, former TPL Tennessee volunteer leader, and generous supporter, joined us in celebration of the completed Chickamauga Creek Greenway and took a moment to share why he values TPL’s work connecting everyone to the outdoors.

I believe everyone’s life can be improved by getting outside and—better yet—being active outside.

Nearly every Saturday for my entire life I have taken a “Sabbath walk” with my family. When I was a child, my parents would drive us places to walk that were sometimes 25 or more miles away because there were really no walking paths or sidewalks in my hometown in those days. Later in my young adult years, the City of Collegedale built a greenway and now it’s a key part of community life in Collegedale and gets heavy use year round. I can walk to it from my house. Everyone should have a place like that so they can enjoy regular outdoor activities.

In 2011, a Tennessee Board member basically kidnapped me after a Rotary Club of Chattanooga meeting one day and took me to the Tennessee office to meet the state director, who had a gift he wanted me to take to my father. That began my relationship with TPL. I’ve served on the Tennessee Board and have remained involved in

projects around Chattanooga. We have also worked with TPL all over the nation on about 10 projects outside of Tennessee funded by McKee Foods’ Outdoor Happiness Movement. Parks for People really resonates with me.

I live on the foot of White Oak Mountain and have built a trail to the ridge, which connects me with the 20+ miles of trails on the campus of Southern Adventist University. I’m up there all the time, sometimes multiple times per week; beyond White Oak Mountain, which is right in my backyard, my favorite place is the Tennessee Riverwalk. I love it for urban walking, its multiple ecosystems, and river views.

Now that the South Chickamauga Greenway is complete, I look forward to seeing communities in south Chattanooga gain access to the Tennessee Riverwalk. The residents of these communities are so close and would gain many benefits—to mind, body, and soul— from access to this expanding greenway system.

© BROOKE BRAGGER

Chris Mckee, EVP of McKee Foods