Yesterday, the city of Fayetteville's second-oldest park celebrated major upgrades. Walker Park is officially reopened after more than three years of consistent work to offer new and improved amenities. Ted Jack is the park planning superintendent for the city. He says a big park like Walker Park is the kind that often works the best.
“And that's because there's so many different types of recreation. There's just a huge amount of different types of activities people want to do, and that changes through your life. So you might want to be doing something at a younger age and something totally different when you're older.”
Another reason Walker Park works well: There's plenty of ways to get to it. There's road access by car, of course, but Jack says direct bike trail access is key, too.
Jack: I think being on the greenway is just such a cherry on top. It just makes it so much more easy for people to get here. So many people are using the greenway and they can just stop. They can stop and just sit for a little while, or they can stop and play horseshoes or enjoy something for a little while. So it makes a real great place to meet friends and have a day.
Moore: It's a good, like, third space kind of energy.
Jack: Yep.
Moore: Tell me a little bit about, we're standing right here. Tell me about what we're looking at here.
Jack: All right. So we're looking right in front of us are the bocce courts. And you'll see some artwork on that. That was done by Navarette, who did the original about two years ago, the work on the basketball court. So he's come and added some of his touches throughout the park, some of its wayfinding, because he's got, like, Bocce 1, Bocce 2 written on it.
And then behind that is a cornhole area and then a pavilion. So you can get out of the sun and enjoy that. And of course, our restroom and then plantings. And then on the far side of that is four sand volleyball courts. Those are lighted.
Sand volleyball is very popular in the city. We have one really good facility up in the north part of the city. Now, this one's in the south. So we'll have good access for people all over.
In addition to the bocce and sand volleyball, the park also has pits to play horseshoes. Jack says that the renovated portion of Walker Park highlights a principle in park design that prioritizes multigenerational spaces.
Jack: Which is really great for families and so forth. So we've done that here. Also the old pavilion, it's one of the most popular pavilions in Fayetteville. So we renovated that, Nvest put a mural on top.
And one of the things we thought, playgrounds are expensive. So we were thinking about just doing one really big playground on the north part, but we got so much community input that that is such a special place for the groups, family get-togethers, church groups to come, and they needed a playground there. So we redid the playground there that was worn out. So making those spaces so they work for different generations is really important.
Moore: As we're looking here right out on 15th Street, we've got basically just green space here. What's the idea here?
Jack: So multipurpose field space is something we were short of in the city. And we were able to, these were the old ball fields. We rebuilt ball fields in Kessler so that we could revision this space.
So what we did out here is made three, it's basically three full-size lighted soccer fields. Two of them are put together. So we can do a lot of different things. You can do a lot more smaller fields. It gives you just a tremendous variety of things that you can do in this space. And them being lighted means we'll be able to program them even better.
Moore: I know you're someone who takes a lot of pride in the small details, the little details, the small things here. As you look around this space specifically, is there anything that is a hidden treasure or anything you really hope that listeners will keep an eye out for?
Jack: Oh, I would look around for this stuff that Nvest worked on. That's kind of the cherry on top, I guess you might say.
There's some future pieces that we couldn't get in. One of them is going to be right at the greenway entrance, which we're hoping to do, like, a rock climbing feature. So it'd be, like, right on the greenway. We'd go down the greenway, there'd be people all over these rocks. And that, I think, will really be a special space. There won't be anything like it in the city and be a real cool place.
Moore: How do you envision the space, the people who use this park, how do you think that looks different five years from now?
Jack: Oh, good question. I think over the time it's actually going to grow with use because a lot of this is word of mouth. Someone comes over, they play bocce, they've never played bocce before, but they really enjoy it and they have fun. So then they say, "Hey, friend, why don't you come with me? We'll go do that."
So I think things grow like that. It's kind of organic, but it happens with this park, certainly has the power to do that because of the mix of offerings that are here. One-off things don't necessarily work as well. But when you can come to a space where there's a lot of stuff going on, it's just a nicer feeling. So you might be playing bocce and right next to you, someone's playing something else and having a good time.
Moore: Ted Jack is the park planning superintendent for the city of Fayetteville. We spoke at the newly renovated Walker Park late last week.
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