CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- For nearly a decade, residents of Charlotte's Lincoln Heights neighborhood have been trying to get a neighborhood park.
It has never happened and the reasons include a soured economy and county budget priorities.
But now that is going to change. A partnership between the Mecklenburg County Parks Department and a group called Hands on Charlotte announced Monday that a park will be built on 11 acres of land along Catherine Simmons Avenue between the 1500 and 1900 blocks.
US Airways will be the primary sponsor in efforts to build the park that it is estimated will cost some $200,000.
The park will be built by volunteers as part of the remembrance of the 10th anniversary of the attacks of 9/11 this coming September.
"We are going to engage a thousand volunteers to recapture the feeling we had on September 11th that we want to help," said Lisa Quisenberry, Executive Director of Hands on Charlotte.
Sheryl Smith of the Lincoln Heights Neighborhood Association said residents had waited a long time for a park like so many other neighborhoods already have.
"They are very deserving of it," she said. "And we are going to stay on it until it gets done."
Back down Cathrine Simmons Avenue, little Timmy Jordan and his friends were riding their bikes on a narrow strip of cracked concrete outside the doors of their apartment complex.
One of the mothers says it is the only playground these kids have ever known.
"This is all they have right now. The driveway and a parking lot full of rocks," said Michilla Boyd, as she kept and eye on the children.
She and others like her here are grateful that the long dreamed-of park is going to become a reality.
