The Carlisle Corporation has made a $1.5 million investment into the first ADA-accessible walkway that connects the bluff in Downtown Memphis to the riverfront at Tom Lee Park.
The path will be named Carlisle Cutbank Bluff in honor of the late Gene Carlisle. According to Memphis River Parks Partnership (MRPP), this is the first time that “commercial development has been connected to the riverfront.”
“The Carlisle Cutbank Bluff represents the partnership’s commitment to easy, equitable access to the new park,” said Tyree Daniels, board chair of MRPP. “This beautiful new feature makes it so much easier and more fun to move between Downtown and the riverfront. It means that visitors will find it much easier to get from upstairs on Main Street down to the river in a more equitable way, and we couldn’t be more excited about this achievement, but also making this available for our community.”
Chance Carlisle, CEO of Carlisle LLC, said, “Two things that really hit home for us was the ability to provide the first of its kind, ADA-accessibility to the park. For the last 40 or 50 years, with the exception of maybe a month or so in May, Tom Lee Park was sort of an afterthought, rather than a signature riverfront. It’s hard to be a great riverfront city without an excellent front door, and what Memphis River Parks has done, and all of the donors, is really give Memphians a park that we can be proud of, for all of Memphis.”
Carlisle said the river plays an important role in the future of Downtown, transitioning from a center for agricultural products and commerce to a “twenty-first century vision of it being about tourism, development, and a high-quality of life.”
He said, “This is what it means to be in Memphis, and to have that be associated with us is wonderful. It’s always been — and Downtown has always been — a neighborhood for everybody. The investments made at the Mobility Center, the investments made at Tom Lee Park, just continue to add to that momentum.”
The bluff includes an ADA-compliant switchback ramp as well as a staircase, two “stone scrambles” for climbing, and new trees and grasses.
Garrett Uithoven of Montgomery Martin Contractors says that the colorizations of the stone are designed to go from cool blues and grays at the bottom, and transition to cream beige and a red-orange at the top to reflect the natural recurring colors in the bluff along the Mississippi River.
“If you cut into the undisturbed bluff at any point along the river around this region, you would get that same color in the dirt and rock that make up the banks of the river,” Uithoven said.
He also says that there are accent lights with uplights that shine on some of the trees, with others shining on the stone faces.
The bluff will open in 2023, the same time that Tom Lee Park will be open to the public. Daniels says that Tom Lee Park is now 50 percent completed.
“Imagine the catalytic effect on Downtown, when Tom Lee Park is complete,” said Penelope Huston of the Downtown Memphis Commission. “To unlock the true power of Downtown, all the individual assets have to be connected, like they are here at the Cutbank Bluff.”