Graham city council members voted 3-0 Tuesday night to purchase 10 acres of land adjacent to Graham Regional Park along Jim Minor Road – for a price “not to exceed $335,000” – in order to expand the existing 127-acre park site.
Graham Regional Park is located along North Jim Minor Road, south of I-85/40 and east of the Haw River.
Alamance County tax records list the latest assessed tax value for the property at 1771 North Jim Minor Road at $123,436. The property that the city intends to purchase for the park expansion includes an 840-square foot home built in 1960. The property is currently owned by Thomas and Linda Stewart, according to the county’s tax records.
The purchase will be funded by a combination of grant money and appropriated fund balance, based on a motion to approve the purchase that council member Bonnie Whitaker read aloud after the council reconvened the open portion of the meeting following a brief closed session Tuesday night.
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The lion’s share of the funding will come from a $307,725 grant that the city of Graham received through the Parks and Recreation Trust Fund (PARTF), which the city had previously designated for an expansion of Bill Cooke Park along Townbranch Road. Another $27,275 in fund balance (“rainy-day savings”) will be appropriated to cover the purchase, according to Whitaker’s motion, which passed 3-0 Tuesday night.
Council members heard an overview last month of a draft master plan that the Withers Ravenel engineering and architectural firm in Raleigh has developed for Graham Regional Park, using feedback gathered during two recent community meetings, as well as an online survey.
Results from two online surveys, which garnered a total of 812 responses, revealed that the most desired features for development of the park were: a “splash pad”; playgrounds; walking/hiking trails; an “adventure program”; sports fields/courts; and an amphitheater, according to a presentation to the council at its October meeting.
[Story continues below maps of the regional park.]
The proposed long-term park plan features: a splash pad; “adventure play” and a “sensory garden”; public art at an entryway; six pickleball courts and three tennis courts; five natural turf multipurpose fields and two synthetic turf soccer fields; several playgrounds adjacent to the fields; basketball courts; a large pavilion that could host basketball year-round, as well as an arts festival and a farmer’s market; pedestrian and bike trails; an event space; and restrooms.
Throughout the “community engagement process,” a splash pad was consistently listed as the top priority for the future development of Graham Regional Park, Kristen Herndon and Michael Alderman of Withers Ravenel told the council last month.
The draft master plan also designates a portion of the site for a future fire station, Alderman noted during his presentation.
Herndon pointed to another item on the wish lists that emerged from the two community meetings and online surveys, which she says are becoming increasingly popular: “paved pump tracks.” Paved pump tracks feature paved “circuits of rollers” and “banked turns for people on bicycles, skateboards, and scooters who can track, or generate momentum through up and down body movements — instead of pedaling or pushing,” according to parks and recreation organizations around the U.S.
Paved pump tracks could be a “revenue-generator” for the city, through pump track tournaments and instructional clinics that are a precursor of sorts to mountain biking, Herndon said during the presentation to the council.
A “trail network” with a mix of walking trails and “bridges that cross the streams” could be built along the southern edge of the property next to existing trees, Alderman said. Due to the size of that portion of the site, the trail network would include “sort of a beginner mountain bike area,” he added. “It’s just not something really offered in Graham – you have to go quite far to learn how to ride a bike, so this natural area is quite perfect for that; the pump track sort of feeds into that.”
“Getting the grant money to build something is a great step, but to be able to create something that generates revenue ongoing to maintain it is really something that I think the taxpayers want to see,” Graham mayor Jennifer Talley said during last month’s discussion. “That’s why I was very adamant about having the fire substation there because you’re going to have EMS or someone there anyways for tournaments and games. And what a great facility for the firemen to utilize as well, but I think it serves two purposes.”
The so-called “adventure play” area would feature bridges and tree houses, Herndon said, “really making the play a little bit more adventurous, higher off the ground.”
“We wanted to make sure it didn’t have to be staffed in order to be played on all the time,” Herndon added. “This is something that guests can just walk in and play at their own will. We also went back to – you mentioned you wanted ‘revenue-generating,’ and we definitely took that in mind when we created a lot of this stuff. The pickleball courts could be hosted for tournaments; you’ve got the amphitheater; the covered pavilion could be rented out, as well as used for programming in-house.”
An area near the restrooms could have concessions and food truck hookups, Herndon told the council last month. “We thought that could also take place near the covered pavilion in case an event was [there], and food trucks could line up there, as well.”
The master plan is currently scheduled to be presented to the council for a vote at its next meeting on December 9, based on a timeline for adoption of the final master plan that has been developed for the city.
The council had also entered into a closed session at its October meeting to discuss the potential purchase of the property at 1771 North Jim Minor Road that was ultimately finalized near the conclusion of this week’s half-hour council meeting.
Talley was absent Tuesday night.
