Sheldon S. Shafer

The Courier-Journal

The Olmsted Parks Conservancy has received a $500,000 grant from James Graham Brown Foundation, primarily for restoration projects and other improvements at Victory Park and Boone Square in western Louisville.

Boone Square, at 20th and Rowan streets, opened in 1892; it was one of the first local parks that noted landscape designer Frederick Law Olmsted completed in Louisville. The park is widely used by the Portland Promise Center and Portland Elementary.

The four-acre Victory Park is in the 1000 block of 23rd Street, near Kentucky Street. The design by the Olmsted Brothers Landscape Architecture firm dates to the early 1920s and initially featured a playground, wading pool, restroom facilities and many trees.

About one-fourth of the new $500,000 Brown Foundation grant will be spent in Victory Park, nearly two-thirds in Boone Square and the rest for new signs throughout the Olmsted system, said conservancy spokeswoman Liz DeHart. Project cost estimates are still preliminary, pending final design, she said.

Olmsted and his sons are credited with designing the ring of large parks, including Shawnee, Iroquois, Cherokee and Seneca, and the parkways that connect them, as well as numerous smaller parks.

The work at Victory Park is to include updated play equipment and sprayground; walking paths; lighting; ballfield enhancements; extensive tree plantings; and additional landscaping.

A master plan process is intended, with public meetings to get ideas on the projects, before proceeding with final design and construction. DeHart said the actual work should be under way no later than 2016.

The Boone Square work is to include restoration of a limestone wall that surrounds part of the facility and renovation of restrooms and a park shelter.

The plan also calls for upgrading of walkways, playground sprayground equipment, and lighting.

Another $40,000 has been made available for the work at Boone Square and Victory Park, including $5,000 from the Louisville Metro Council. DeHart said the conservancy does not want to specify amounts, but the sources for the money were the Gheens and Cralle foundations and Habitat for Humanity.

Reporter Sheldon S. Shafer can be reached at (502) 582-7089. Follow him on Twitter at @sheldonshafer.