A Splash Pad Built in 45 Days Instead of 180. An Air Conditioner That Never Worked. Same Question Both Times.

MEMPHIS, July 21, 2026 - The Orange Mound splash pad was supposed to take 180 days to build. It was built in 45.

That figure came out Tuesday morning when Memphis Parks deputy director Marcia Allen was asked by a council committee why a four-year-old splash pad has needed so much repair.

"A little bit of the challenge with this splash pad in particular, it was constructed in 45 days," Allen said. "We have learned a huge lesson from that."

She said the department was under real time constraints and that the standard construction timeline for a project like it is 180 days.

The splash pad opened August 20, 2022, as a $1.2 million project, the parks director told the committee. Since then the city has replaced the motor and added a recirculation system the original build did not include, so water could be reused. This summer the department focused on cutting the number of closures and says it has, though not to its own satisfaction. Crews have dealt with overflow running into the street.

Chairwoman Jana Swearengen-Washington, who requested the update, told the committee residents have not had consistent use of it.

"They deserve to be able to enjoy the splash pad, and it's out quite frequently," she said.

Parks plans a full assessment of the electrical system and motors after Labor Day.

Two hours earlier, the same shape of problem

In the preceding committee meeting, council members heard that the heating and cooling unit at the Orange Mound library, a building barely two years old, has never worked properly.

The library division told members the unit is less than two years old, has generated repeated maintenance calls, and that the cause may be installation or manufacturing. Housing and Community Development provided funds for a temporary unit to keep the building cool while a replacement is arranged. The division said conversations are underway with the original contractor because, according to the notes it reviewed, something was wrong when the unit was installed.

Chairwoman Swearengen-Washington did not take it well.

"This is a brand new building, two years old, with taxpayers' money," she said. She questioned why the city proceeded with a contractor when problems were known, and tied it to what she described as decades of friendships and alignments in Memphis contracting.

Two other library systems came up. At the Hollywood branch, cooling kept shutting off, and staff discovered the cause was a fault in the fire alarm system, which cuts the HVAC when it trips. At the Officer Jeffrey Reed branch, an electrical issue means staff manually reset a fairly new unit most mornings. The division said no operating hours have been lost.

The question the council actually asked

Councilwoman Pearl Eva Walker put the two projects side by side.

"In the previous presentation, there's an HVAC system that had been working properly two years old. Now we're discussing a splash pad not working properly, four years old," she said. "Is there any intersectionality between these two projects? Has it been the same vendor, contractor, anything in the process that are connected?"

The answer was no. Parks identified the splash pad vendor as Water Odyssey and said the department has since moved to a different vendor for newer splash pads. There is no overlap with the library HVAC work.

Councilwoman Janika White said that was not the end of it.

"We keep kind of seeing things and we don't necessarily address kind of the underlying potential issues," she said. She asked whether the city has people who specialize in evaluating vendors, warranties, and protections, said she did not know whether that belongs with legal or with the administration, and asked that the council review the projects it has had to repair or replace in short order to find the pattern.

Parks confirmed the splash pad went through the city's internal bid process, including design, procurement review, and review by the city's legal division, and that a parks project manager was assigned.

What happens next

Parks will perform a full assessment of the Orange Mound splash pad in the fall and report back. No date was set for the vendor selection review Councilwoman White requested, and no member moved to formalize it.