Editor’s note: This article has been corrected from its original version.

MOULTRIE, Ga. — Groundbreaking ceremonies are set for 10 a.m. Friday for a second downtown park, a continuation of improvements put into motion by Downtown Moultrie Tomorrow.

Following a recent opening of a “pocket park” at the corner of First Street and Second Avenue Southeast, the second project, known as Mule Barn Park, will involve the reconstruction of a parking lot owned by the county on Second Street Southeast across Central Avenue from the Colquitt County Courthouse Annex. The  “mule barn’’ moniker comes from the fact that during Colquitt County’s rich farming history, mules were sold at that location.

Moultrie City Manager Pete Dillard said recently that “it’s going to more park than parking lot.”

The city is currently doing the engineering on the project with one of the plans being to remove overhead power lines and put them underground.

The development of this park is just one of several elements of downtown improvements.

The money is now available to tear down the old Sportsman Restaurant. Once an iconic gathering place on First Street Southeast, the building deteriorated badly after the restaurant closed in December 2003.

“The Sportsman had no side walls,” Dillard said. “Its side walls were the buildings next to it.”

Another pocket park is planned for that site, and it will lead into a city-owned parking lot on Second Avenue Southeast. That parking lot is another project in the DMT’s redevelopment plan, according to David Herndon, chairman of DMT’s Enhancement Committee.

“That’s going to be the most complex project, and it’s going to take a little longer, but we’re working on it,” Herndon said.

The redevelopment plan also calls for a welcome center to be located in downtown Moultrie. Dillard said Downtown Moultrie Tomorrow has been in negotiations to purchase the former CitiTrends building on Main Street at Central Avenue, but those talks have been complicated.

The building’s owners, a husband and wife, died without a will, Dillard said. Every heir has agreed to sell the building, he said, but they don’t currently have anyone with legal authority to sign the paperwork.

When that’s settled and the deal does come together, he said, DMT will renovate the building and is expected to donate it to the city to house the Main Street Department, an office for the UGA Small Business Development Center, public restrooms and space for Colquitt Regional Medical Center to have a downtown presence. Dillard said the hospital will probably use its space to offer information and brochures, but it might sometimes put on a health fair there.

The final part of the redevelopment project involves buying and installing security cameras in nine blocks of downtown. Officials have said the cameras will make visitors to the heart of the city safer, and thus encourage more people to come downtown.