Carol Coletta will step down as CEO of the Memphis River Parks Partnership (MRPP) and the board will soon begin a nationwide search for her successor.
Coletta, a Memphis native, helmed the organization since 2018. During her time, the group completed four major projects — River Garden, Fourth Bluff Park, River Line, and Tom Lee Park. Together, the projects totaled more than $80 million. Coletta told MRPP board members those projects were delivered “on budget and on time.”
“We have done amazing work together,” she said. “It has been the greatest honor of my life to work with you, our fantastic team, and our generous donors to begin the work of making a riverfront worthy of our magnificent river.
“We’ve completed four major projects on budget and on time. We did it in only six years. We have attracted more than one million people to the new Tom Lee Park in its first year. We have another major project, The Flyway, underway that will significantly increase that number.”
Memphis-based Adams Keegan will conduct the search for Coletta’s replacement, set to begin next month. The search is expected to conclude by year’s end.
The transformation of Tom Lee Park was easily Coletta’s biggest and highest-profile project in her term at MRPP. The project was lauded by many local officials and business owners, urban design firms, and media. Fast Company, for example, called it one of the top three urban design World Changing ideas.
The new park also had detractors, especially Memphis in May (MIM), which fought the design, even through a forced mediation process from then-Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland. MIM blamed the new design on dwindling attendance and a few years of financial losses.
Coletta said she will “support the [MRPP] in any way I am needed until the board finds the right leader.”
“There is exciting work ahead, and [MRPP] is well-positioned and committed to getting it done,” said Coletta. “To maximize the value of our riverfront, it must be better connected to Downtown and nearby neighborhoods. We also have a big opportunity to activate our harbor, and Mud Island needs a successful, sustainable future.
“The next seven years of work will be just as tough as the last seven. But the results will have as much impact — maybe more — than anything we’ve done to date. This is an intense and rewarding job for someone who will start and finish this work and who will own it all the way to completion.”
