June 2011 - Parks & Recreation - 65

	

million dollars. Their involvement helped spark
these land preservation efforts.
In 2001, Jones and his son Dan took up the challenge to think about a strategic parks vision for
Louisville. Realizing that Olmsted's vision of systemic additions to the existing park system could
be duplicated in their city, the Joneses founded 21st
Century Parks to build on the work of Future Fund
and Louisville Metro Parks. The father/son team
and other leaders realized that the city was growing toward its eastern edge, and that to preserve
the parkland in the Floyds Fork stream corridor
they would have to engage the private sector. The
Parklands of Floyds Fork project opened the door
for one of the boldest public/private partnerships
to protect open space in the country.

Partnerships and Sustainable Funding
21st Century Parks set a $113 million fundraising
goal. To date, $103 million has been raised from
individual donors, foundations, and corporations,
as well as local, state, and federal public entities.
A total of $38 million is designated for land acquisition and $75 million for design and construction.
More than 60 real estate transactions have been
completed, including outright land purchase as
well as conservation easements. A $10 million endowment fund has been established to maintain
the parks. Contributing $1.5 million and providing
public sector leadership to the project, Louisville
Metro Parks will continue to play a cooperative
role. 21st Century Parks and Louisville Metro government have worked together to ensure that the
Parklands of Floyds Fork will be accessible to the
public in perpetuity.
Dan Jones set Olmsted's vision for parkland design as the bar. 21st Century Parks contracted with
Wallace, Roberts & Todd to prepare the Floyds
Fork Greenway Master Plan, later to become
known as the Parklands of Floyds Fork. Completed in 2008, the master plan prioritizes natural resources protection and provides a tool for urban
planning. It is a blueprint for sustainable development in a major urban area.
Jones and other project leaders have been
committed to an open and inclusive process. The

www . N R P A . O R G

J U NE 2 0 1 1

quadrant photography

This short drive takes you to the Parklands
of Floyds Fork, a linear park system in the making that is the result of years of work by visionary thinkers and city leaders. This project protects
nearly 4,000 acres of stream valley on the eastern
edge of this growing metropolitan area. From the
beginning, the vision for this project was to protect an undeveloped 20-mile stretch of land and
water from inevitable population growth on the
eastern edge of Jefferson County. This is Louisville's last frontier.
One of the largest urban park development
projects in the country, the Parklands of Floyds
Fork is a public parkland preservation project
envisioned and implemented by the private sector that can serve as a national model for a sustainable urban landscape. Once completed, 20
contiguous miles of green space will protect a waterway, preserve wildlife habitat, and provide outdoor recreation opportunities for residents in the
region. The Parklands of Floyds Fork will bring
nature into neighborhoods.
Louisville has a rich heritage of parks and greenways. In the late 1800s, legendary landscape
architect Frederic Law Olmsted was commissioned by many cities, including Louisville, to
design their urban park systems. However, only
four cities completed the work that Olmsted envisioned. Louisville not only completed Olmsted's
vision, but is now expanding the vision on the
city's eastern and southern urban fringe. Olmsted
was above all a visionary who saw green space
as the centerpiece of neighborhood development.
Olmsted's parks and parkways were woven into
the fabric of the Louisville community. His design
concept linked the community and provided an
oasis for densely populated neighborhoods that
would later be developed.
In the early 1990s, Steve Henry, former Kentucky Lieutenant Governor, Jefferson County
Commissioner, and founder of the nonprofit land
trust Future Fund Inc., built on the Olmsted legacy by soliciting funds to acquire land in the Floyds
Fork watershed. Henry's vision was supported by
philanthropists David Jones, co-founder of Humana Inc., and Mary Bingham, who raised the first

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June 2011 - Parks & Recreation

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