New playground, community center could open next month at Wake Forest's Joyner Park

Next month, town officials hope to open up a new community center, three times the size of its current one at Flaherty Park, and a new playground. The physical structures are done, but the work isn't finished.

"There are a lot of little punch list, checklist items that we're going over," said Ruben Wall, the town's parks and recreation director. "That's what's happening now. We're tweaking some things ... Our plan, and it's not set in stone, is to open the center and new playground in September."

The first phase of the $13 million project, funded through a 2014 bond referendum, opened in April when a cover was finished to protect the park's outdoor stage.

Since then, the focus has been on the 32,000-square-foot community center and playground.

Once open, the community center will be the town's largest recreational facility and include a gym with space for basketball, volleyball and pickleball, an instructional teaching kitchen, new dance studio, a locker room with showers, a suspended walking track and fitness equipment, among other amenities.

The space also is designed to serve as a shelter in the case of bad weather or other emergencies. The building also will include washers and dryers and family restrooms.

"It's designed where people can come there and stay," Wall said. "Weather has gotten so unpredictable. These events are happening more often now. As a town, that was something we could offer the citizens."

The playground, Wall said, is designed to be one-of-a-kind with room for toddlers to tweens and even older kids and adults to play.

"We have really made this something unique," Wall said. "It is not your traditional playground. You will see that it has a more wood, outdoors, birdhouse, nature feel to it."

It was done like that intentionally, and at the request of the community, who wanted to preserve as much of the beauty of the outdoor spot as possible, Wall said. Even the community center is designed to look like a barn with a front porch with rocking chairs.

"Citizens told us that they wanted to keep that facility and property as natural as possible," Wall said.

The 117-acre park is at 701 Harris Rd. and already includes that outdoor amphitheater, lots of open space, paved trails, old farm buildings and more.