A Year for Parks to Shine

With so many things scaled back for the pandemic, 2020 was — at the very least — the year for parks to shine. Fresh air and sunshine were open year-round, and parks were available, with limited exceptions, for socially-distant outdoor escape.

While we think of our local parks as an absence of development — where natural Charlotte is preserved as the city around it grows — there is actually a lot of planning and work that goes into keeping them open and accessible to the public. Bert Lynn is the Mecklenburg County Park and Recreation Capital Planning Division Director. It’s his job, among other things, to keep dozens and dozens of projects on budget, on track, and on time. Sounds pretty hectic, but Lynn describes his job as, “the most fun at Park and Rec.”

Lynn explains that local parks are far from the absence of development. Think, instead, of parks as a constant work in progress: planning, construction, and upkeep are full-steam-ahead, behind-the-scenes endeavors that allow our park spaces to keep up with our area’s exponential growth. Many of them are outlined in the department’s new master plan, called Meck Playbook. Lynn allowed us to peek behind the curtain of work being done this year.

“We have over 50 active projects, from small neighborhood parks to Memorial Stadium,” Lynn says, “and we have a ton of greenway projects going on right now.”

In fact, greenways continue to be the #1 requested park amenity in surveys of residents. The county is several dozen miles behind previous master plans, which called for almost 80 miles of greenways (1980 plan) and 129 miles of greenways (2008 plan), respectively, by now. But projects are gaining steam and moving fast: Nearly 56 miles of greenways are open to the public, with another 37 miles in planning, bidding, or construction phases to open trails within the next 5 years. Every time a section opens, it is immediately full of people doing every kind of outdoor activity. “It shows how many different folks can go and use it,” points out Lynn. “You can take a stroll out there, you can pound out some miles running, you can go for a long bike ride, and now with a number of our trails extending several miles… people are starting to use them as part of their commute. From a bike/ped standpoint, there are huge benefits to our greenways.” One of the most exciting sections is sure to be the Cross-Charlotte Trail, or XCLT. It runs through Charlotte as the Little Sugar Creek Greenway, part of the Carolina Thread Trail connecting North and South Carolina. The city is working on a long-awaited section — Brandywine to Tyvola, which connects the southern section (Tyvola to I-485) with Park Road Shopping Center and points north, like Freedom Park and Midtown Square. It is the most technically difficult and time-consuming section of trail because it follows Little Sugar Creek through a long-developed area of the city. “It is a heavy lift,” says Lynn, noting it will be another year before that section is complete. Two other sections of XCLT are under construction or near completion: one section connecting Midtown to Cordelia Park, and another connecting I-485 to the James K. Polk State Park. From there, the Thread Trail will eventually continue to the state line and to the Anne Springs Close Greenway in South Carolina. Greenways aren’t just great for recreation and transportation, Lynn reminds us. They also protect the environment and create wildlife habitats along floodplains where buildings can’t be built.

In addition to greenways, two other projects are exciting developments during 2020 and 2021: the Memorial Stadium renovation, and the Eastway Recreation Center. American Legion Memorial Stadium is one of the area’s most long-cherished sites, opening in 1936, and longtime residents can share thousands of stories of memories made there. In fact, the stadium is a designated historic site, so the county is working with the Landmarks Commission on the restoration. The beloved rock walls are being rebuilt in the new 10,500-seat stadium, and artificial turf and new lighting will allow the field to endure more sports and civic uses on a broader schedule than before. The tunnel under Charlottetown Road will reopen to connect the Little Sugar Greenway to Independence Park, which is also being renovated. Over on the east side, Eastway Recreation Center on Eastway Drive is getting ready to open its doors. The new rec center offers 93,000 square feet of active space including a lap pool, leisure pool, walking track, gym space for basketball and indoor soccer, classroom spaces, computer labs, and community spaces for meetings. “This is what I’m most excited about right now,” beamed Lynn. “It’s a facility with everything we do as a department under one roof!” Lynn also cites the park’s connectivity to surrounding neighborhoods. “It’s not only going to serve as a gem for the neighborhoods that are directly adjacent, but it’s’ going to serve everyone countywide,” he says. Residents can buy a MeckPass to get access to the new Eastway Recreation Center and all Park & Recreation facilities countywide, including another recreation center similar to Eastway that is under construction in Cornelius.

There are more projects to come — Lynn said there are 50 in the works right now — following the twin rails of growth: Keeping up with significant improvements needed in smaller, older neighborhood parks, and acquiring areas for new parks to keep up with the region’s rapid growth. “Only 36-37% of residents have access to a public space within a 10-minute walk of their house,” says Lynn, “so we have existing facilities we need to bring up and keep up to a high standard, and also grow our footprint so people have access,” Lynn says compared to other departments the size of Meck Park & Rec, the county has a larger number of landholdings, but fewer employees. Land will get more scarce, as dollars already are. Strategic partners will be crucial to progress. “We’ve got to be very strategic in how we grow over the next couple of years,” he says. “We don’t want to repeat where we are now. We want to be able to grow to a level where everything stays at a high level, and grow in a way that we can maintain those facilities at a high level.” And speaking of those employees, Lynn makes sure to give them a big shout-out for the work they’ve done this year while so much has been shut down, yet so many people flocked to parks for relief. “Our operations staff is awesome,” he says with pride. “Our folks have been out the entire time making sure people are staying safe, and have facilities they can use and enjoy.” Let’s look to more of the same for 2021, as Partners for Parks helps the agency to continue Breathing Life Into Our Community.