The awaited jewel of downtown Murphysboro, the new Town Center Park, will receive its final touches and open to the public this summer, according to its designer and project manager, artist John Medwedeff.

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Winter storms have slowed progress, he said, but landscapers from Partridge Landscaping, from Grand Chain, Ill., were again putting out landscaping in the warm temperatures Friday.
The centerpiece of the roughly one-acre park on the 1800 block of Walnut Street will be the stainless steel bandshell. The piece, designed by Medwedeff, is being fabricated in Kansas City, Mo. by A. Zahner Co., the same people who fabricated famed architect Frank Gehry’s stainless steel pavilion in Millennium Park in Chicago.
“I felt pretty lucky to be able to pull them into the project,” Medwedeff said, adding that their experience and abilities allow for greater creativity.
“It should be a really nice break from the normal architectural spaces that we all inhabit,” he said, adding that it could become “a really cool landmark for the community for a long time.”
When approached with the idea of creating an outdoor space, Medwedeff first thought of how there was no meeting spot in the downtown area. Smysor Plaza, the down-the-street home of his Smysor Fountain, had been used as such, but not having been designed specifically for events, could get awkward.
Town Center Park will fulfill that need, as well as operating as additional campus space for the adjacent youth center and Sallie Logan Library.
“I can’t wait to go out and have my lunch by the bubbling fountain,” said Donella Odum, director of the library.
That kind of thing, along with performance space, is its primary purpose, according to Medwedeff, who says the spot will offer a place “for anybody that wants to have a nice, peaceful place to go relax for an hour.”
But, he says “I’m sure they will come up with uses that we haven’t thought of.
What I’m hoping it does is it provides Murphysboro with a landmark and a gathering point for the community as well as a place where someone can just relax individual and have a pleasant experience,” he said.
The park will join a list of projects by Medwedeff that include pieces in Chicago, Florida, and all around the region.