SPRINGFIELD - Mayor Domenic J. Sarno on Friday will formally announce plans to name a park in East Forest Park in memory of Springfield native Marine Gunnery Sgt. Thomas J. Sullivan, killed in the July 16 attacks that killed five U.S. servicemen in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

The formal announcement is scheduled at 2:15 p.m. Friday at the park site located off South Branch Parkway near Watershops Ponds, also known as Lake Massasoit.

"I thought, as with the neighborhood, how appropriate it is to name that South Branch Parkway passive park and waterway area after our late hometown hero, and how appropriate it is in the heart of the neighborhood he grew up in," Sarno said Wednesday.

City officials and family members are expected to attend the announcement on Friday.

A community service crew from the Western Massachusetts Correctional Alcohol Center is shown in 2013, helping out with a footbridge project on park land off South Branch Parkway near Watershops Pond in Springfield. The park is slated to be named in memory of Maine Gunnery Sgt. Thomas Sullivan.

Sarno said that Tommy and his brother Joe used to carry over paddle boats to the waterway area now being named in Thomas Sullivan's honor. Sarno said that naming the park area after Tommy is something he has had in mind for awhile, and he conferred with Joe.

There have been improvements done at the park in recent years, and the city has applied for a state grant for additional improvements. The proposed grant improvements include a kayak launch area, a small gazebo, picnic tables, some new trees and landscaping.

FBI Director James Comey said on Wednesday that the attacks on two military sites in Chattanooga, that killed Sullivan and four other servicemen, were motivated by terrorism propaganda. The attacks were carried out by 24-year-old Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez.