Charlotte, NC-- Mecklenburg County Park and Recreation Department invites interested citizens to a community workshop on the proposed First Ward Park at 6pm, Wednesday, September 17, 2008 at Daniel Levine Properties Building, 301 East 9th Street, Suite 100.  This will be the first of three workshops on this new facility.

First Ward Park is part of a joint venture between Levine Properties, UNC-Charlotte, Mecklenburg County, and the City of Charlotte. The park will be built on top of an underground public/ private parking deck which will serve the new UNCC Uptown Campus, 525 new residential units, and 40,000 sq ft of retail space. The new 4 ¼ acre park will be built across from Imaginon, between East 7th, 9th and Brevard Streets, just east of the light rail tracks.

Park designers at this first workshop will outline boundaries of the park, summarize plans for future development around the park, look at examples of similar urban parks in other cities and hear comments from the community before laying the framework for the park. Park designers will present design concepts at later workshops based on discussion during this first workshop.