02.17.2017 | GREENVILLE JOURNAL | 5
COMMUNITYJOURNALS.COM
NEW HEIGHTS Like the Liberty Bridge in Falls Park, the city’s new west side park may have a signature attraction — an eight-story tower Iconic parks have iconic centerpieces. Chicago’s Millennium Park has The Bean. St. Louis’ Jefferson Expansion Memorial Park has The Arch. Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Park has the interactive Fountain of Rings. Greenville’s major parks have signature features, too, that one thing that becomes the symbol for the park itself. Falls Park has The Liberty Bridge, Cleveland Park has the Greenville Zoo, and the Cancer Survivor’s Park will soon have an education center and pavilion. But what will symbolize City Park, the proposed park on Greenville’s western flank? A tower, at least according to very preliminary sketches revealed by Darren Meyer, principal of the Columbus, Ohio-based urban design and landscape architecture firm MKSK, which is opening an office in Greenville. At eight stories tall, the tower would provide views of the Greenville skyline. An 80foot tower would provide a panoramic view of the Blue Ridge Mountains as well. Meyer studied the Greenville Mill, the Liberty Bridge, Furman’s Bell Tower, the Southern Railway passenger station, Poe Mill, Mills Mill, Huguenot Mill, and the historic City Hall, a red brick Romanesque revival building built in 1892 and torn down in the 1970s. It could be made of wood, masonry, weathered steel, or glass. A tower for City Park is not a new idea. Renderings for the park completed by landscape architect Tom Keith of Arbor Engineering more than a decade ago also contained a tower. Other parks around the world have observation towers, too, including Killesbergpark in Stuttgart, Germany, which features a cable-stayed tower that gives park-goers a panoramic view of the city. —Cindy Landrum
The city is looking at smokestacks, like this one at Poe Mill, as inspiration for the proposed City Park tower. Photo by Will Crooks.
Among the ideas proposed by consultant MKSK is a calla lilyinspired tower with an observation deck.
The observation tower in Stuttgart, Germany’s Killesbergpark is 120 feet tall. Photo by Ben Garrett via Creative Commons.
The Bean in Chicago’s Millennium Park is made from 168 sheets of stainless steel. Photo by Vanessa Vancour via Creative Commons.