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Four years from now, Memphis, Tennessee, will be home to the largest new urban park to be built in the U.S. in several decades. And it's not just the size that's attention-grabbing. Shelby Farms Park will embody the latest principles of environmental stewardship, urban design, and park management, making it truly a world-class, 21st century park.

Some observers might be surprised that this is happening in Memphis. But consider these facts: A largely undeveloped, 4,500-acre former state prison farm was available at the center of Shelby County (where Memphis is located); a remarkable group of civic leaders was determined to create a truly great park; and, finally, Memphis-like Atlanta, Charlotte, and Orlando-has all the energy, economic dynamism, and ambitions of the New South.

I first heard about this project in January 2006, when the Friends of Shelby Farms called my firm in New York to ask for help in writing a request for proposals from qualified landscape designers. The site had served as a model penal farm from 1929 until the late 1960s, when the state decided to close the farm and transfer the property to the county. At the insistence of civic activists, part of the land was set aside for park use. The scale of the former prison farm was awesome-roughly five times the size of New York's Central Park. There were plenty of questions: What should a park on such a huge site include? What should it look like? How could it be paid for?

At the time, most of the site was being used for some sort of recreation, but there were also two major tenants: the Agricenter, a state-chartered nonprofit organization that was using 1,000 acres for agricultural research and education, and the county government, which was using 300 acres for offices and a small jail.

I gathered from my telephone conversations with people in Memphis-mostly from what was left unsaid-that Shelby Farms was the center of a complex political dynamic involving proponents of a completely pastoral park, others concerned primarily with environmental preservation, and advocates of a variety of recreational activities, ranging from horseback riding to jogging.

The upshot is that I was soon on a flight to Memphis to visit the site and meet with the Friends of Shelby Farms master plan committee. Once there, I toured the site with the group's president, Laura Adams, and the president of the Agricenter, John Charles Wilson.

Two days later, I met with the committee, then chaired by Rick Masson-who would later become the executive director of the Shelby Farms Conservancy. I asked its members what sort of park they wanted. They said they had assumed that a designer would determine this for them. Not an uncommon response, but one that typically exasperates park designers and frustrates community members.

I told the committee that I could not write an RFP without a program for the park, describing the activities envisioned and the landscape improvements and access and circulation systems that would be needed for every section. I made it clear that the program would have to allow for extensive public input to ensure that planning for the park was put in its cultural and social context. Such input would help to resolve political issues early in the process.

The work begins

The committee then asked me to write the program, which I agreed to do so long as the group understood that this was truly a cooperative effort. That led to an intensive, nine-month study of the site and its users, as well as the larger context: Shelby County, the city of Memphis, and all of the existing county and city parks. My staff and I visited the area frequently, meeting with dozens of people, and traveling all over the metropolitan region to understand its communities. Each month, we presented the committee with the results of the previous month's work.

About half a year into the planning process, I told an astonished committee that it risked throwing its money away. Why? Because the $700,000 the county was then spending on the 4,500-acre site fell far short of what was needed, especially when compared with Manhattan's 6.5-acre Bryant Park, which had an operating budget of $7 million. Raising that kind of money in Shelby County, I noted would mean either a tax hike or a reduction in essential services.

There was only one solution, I continued: a nonprofit conservancy that could raise the necessary funds. With the appropriate entrepreneurial leadership, along with a professional staff and sufficient budget, such a group would have the maneuverability of a private organization, all while serving the public interest.

To show local leaders how such a conservancy would operate, I twice took groups to New York City. The first group included several members of the county commission, who upon their return approved an easement preventing commercial use of the property. Both groups of visitors met with the New York City parks commissioner and with the leaders of four very different park management organizations: the Central Park Conservancy, the Prospect Park Alliance, the Bryant Park Corporation, and the Battery Park Conservancy.

They all returned home convinced that their park needed a conservancy, but one that was tailored to local conditions. In just over four months, the new Shelby Farms Park Conservancy came into being, and the county commission voted to give an easement to the Land Trust for Tennessee that would preclude commercial development on the site.

Three months after that, the commission transferred management of the site to the conservancy. The public-private management structure was in place, all but guaranteeing the park's successful future.

Meanwhile, in coordination with the Friends of Shelby Farms Park, we focused on public input. The Friends held dozens of meetings with members of various organizations as well as seven open public meetings at which residents expressed their ideas for transforming the land into a great public park. We followed up by drafting a request for qualifications aimed at attracting a broad range of design teams. To get a sense of the experience and the philosophy of the entrants, we asked questions like this: "If you were to design Shelby Farms Park and could return to it in 50 years, how would you know whether your design was a success?"

The RFQ, which netted 33 submissions, was to be the first phase in a multiphase process. We followed up by asking the three finalists to come up with proposals, and we then meet with them once a month to discuss their progress, answer questions, and react to their designs.

To give the public a chance to view the finalists' proposals, we organized an exhibit and created a website that gave everyone a chance to comment. Finally, we selected a design team to come up with the final master plan, which would be submitted to the county commission for approval.

This process, which was patterned after our firm's plans for rebuilding the World Trade Center and for building an athletes village as part of New York's bid for the 2012 Olympics, has various advantages over a conventional competition. It allows the client to get to know different designers. It gives the public a chance to comment on alternative proposals. And it allows the client to determine the extent to which a design complies with the program and the budget. Most important, the client, not a jury, selects a designer-not a design.

Choosing the designer, not the design

Out of 33 submissions, the conservancy selected three teams to work on independent schemes for Shelby Farms. The teams were led by Field Operations of New York; the Tom Leader Studio of Berkeley; and Hargreaves Associates, which has offices in several cities.

Representatives of all three arrived in Memphis in late November 2007. The program we presented to them made it clear that environmental factors-related to wildlife habitats, groundwater filtration, biodiversity, and ecological productivity-should be part of every decision. At the same time, the program stressed that the park design should promote interaction between people and nature, with the aim of making the park's users its best stewards. The program also clearly stated that the plan should promote Shelby Farms' role as a resource for school groups and other visitors who wish to learn about natural processes.

The designers returned monthly to update the conservancy's master plan committee. Using a methodology that our firm prepared for them, the committee members provided feedback on the three plans. Then, last March, the teams presented their proposals to the public at the Shelby Farms visitors center and at two city library branches. The drawings and models were also made available on the Shelby Farms website.

In April, after considerable discussion, the committee, ably led by Barbara Hyde, selected Field Operations to prepare the master plan for Shelby Farms. Remember, the purpose of the design study was to select a designer, not a design.

In early August, the county commission approved the plan, by then much changed from Field Operations' first draft. And three days later, the conservancy announced a major development: a local philanthropy, the Hyde Family Foundations, had offered a $20 million challenge grant to jumpstart the implementation fundraising effort.

I concluded my work in Shelby County impressed by the consensus that I had witnessed and the speed with which the various actors played their parts. Elected officials, advocacy groups, and private citizens all came together, determined to create a great 21st century park. The entire project proved to me that when the mechanics are properly conceived and executed, and the community is united, it is possible to create a significant public park virtually anywhere in the country.