17-05-2025
City completes $2.4M restoration of Downtown's Friendship Park
More than three years after emergency water work tore it up, Cincinnati Parks has restored Downtown's Theodore M. Berry International Friendship Park and is reopening it in full.
Workers have reinstalled the park's Australian and African gardens, two of five "gardens of the continents" that Greater Cincinnati Water Works removed to install an underground retaining wall to protect a water main.
Parks considers Friendship Park "a living celebration of international goodwill." The 17-acre site, located at the eastern end of two miles of parkland along the Ohio River, was completed in 2003 and named for Cincinnati's first Black mayor.
More: 'Lost, forgotten' Friendship Park gets boost at 20-year mark
The $2.4 million restoration project unveiled May 16 restored the park to its original state, with refurbished bike baths, walkways, seating walls and pavers, along with new trees, sod, shrubs and other landscaping. The work began last July and wrapped up this spring.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Cincinnati Friendship Park reopens
