Scripps Networks Interactive is giving $3 million for construction of a scenic overlook in popular Lakeshore Park in West Knoxville.
Scripps Networks Chairman and President Ken Lowe presented the check today. Dee Haslam, chairwoman of the Lakeshore Park board, accepted the gift.
Haslam noted the network long has supported the park and its uses.
The overlook is in the middle of the 185-acre park on the hill above the historic Lakeshore Mental Health Institute administration building. The park overlooks Fort Loudoun Lake and faces south toward the Smoky Mountains.
The money will pay for a terraced path from the Lakeshore administration building to athletic fields and event spaces, according to Knoxville Mayor Madeline Rogero.
The site will be named in honor of HGTV, the home and garden cable network that helped establish Scripps Networks as an internationally recognized broadcaster. Lowe founded HGTV.
Work is supposed to be done in the summer of 2019. It will be designed by Thomas Woltz of Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects, which operates offices in New York and Charlottesville, Va.
The park is located off Lyons View Pike and Northshore Drive.
It's among the city's most popular, drawing walkers, runners and team sports including baseball.
Lakeshore was for decades a state mental health institution. It closed as part of a state refocusing of mental health services.
Scripps Networks Interactive offers TV programming that includes HGTV, the Food Network and the Travel Network. It also has a digital division, Scripps Lifestyle Studios.
SNI operates at a West Knoxville campus. Late last year it announced it would be merging with the Discovery Channel, with plans for Discovery to have its national operational headquarters in West Knoxville.