Louisville partners with Cincinnati Bengals for new park near Beecher Terrace

A new park is coming to Louisville's Russell neighborhood, to stand alongside the redeveloped Beecher Terrace community.

The nearly six-acre park is set for a plot at S. 13th Street and Muhammad Ali Boulevard and will include a synthetic sports playing field to serve as the home for several youth football teams and other groups. Also included in the first stage of construction will be basketball and pickleball courts, a playground and splash park, a pavilion, plaza and other amenities.

Construction is set to begin this summer, a release from the city said, and will wrap up by next spring.

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Funding was provided in part by the Cincinnati Bengals and National Football League Foundation, which partnered with Local Initiatives Support Co. to put $250,000 toward the project, with more money provided by the American Rescue Plan Act.

In the release, Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg said city officials are "extremely grateful for the generosity of the Cincinnati Bengals" and said the park should help build "a stronger and better city."

The new park will replace an older park at Ninth Street and W. Muhammad Ali Boulevard. That space, the Old Walnut Street Park, closed in 2018 after being open to the community for nearly 80 years.

A portion of the Old Walnut Street Park was used in the Beecher Terrace housing redevelopment, an ongoing project replacing an aging Russell complex that was torn down in 2017. Once completed, Beecher Terrace will include more than 600 new mixed-income apartments just west of downtown Louisville.

The name of the new park, though, has not yet been determined – and officials are looking for suggestions. People are welcome to submit entries to a naming contest at visionrussell.org.

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Reach Lucas Aulbach at [email protected].

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Cincinnati Bengals, Louisville partner on new park by Beecher Terrace