UK Coach Matthew Mitchell donates $1 million to downtown Lexington park
University of Kentucky Women’s Basketball Coach Matthew Mitchell and his wife Jenna Mitchell will donate $1 million to help build the Town Branch Park in downtown Lexington, park officials announced Monday.
“Jenna and I feel extremely blessed to call Lexington home,” said Matthew Mitchell. “We have received so much love and support from virtually every segment of the community, and this is an opportunity for us to give back in a meaningful way.”
Officials have said they need to raise $31 million in private donations before construction can begin on the proposed 9-acre park adjacent to Rupp Arena. Including the Mitchells’ donation, the fundraising total is now at $10.6 million, officials said Monday.
A plaza near the park entrance will be named after the Mitchells. That proposed plaza will hold community events and other activities.
Town Branch Park is part of a much larger revitalization of the Lexington Center and Rupp Arena complex. An expansion of the Lexington Convention Center, which is attached to Rupp, is underway.
Construction on the proposed park can not start until it hits its fundraising target and renovation of the Lexington Convention Center is completed.
The space includes trails, a great lawn of more than an acre that will double as an amphitheater, a water play area and a wooded play area.
Other recent donors to the park include the William Stamps Farish Fund, which donated $500,000 to the park in July.
The Mitchells previously donated $1 million to UK’s athletics department in 2014.
