The town hopes to have the ground-breaking in the Spring of 2017.
Located in the heart of Downtown Holly Springs lies the future site of the Mims Park, a 17 acre forested and historic property acquired by the Town in 2011. Surrounding the site are residential neighborhoods, the Holly Springs Cultural Center, the historic Mims House, a Wake County Library, a restaurant and other businesses. The first phase of the park’s master plan was a visioning and concept process that was driven largely by resident input. The final plan includes hard and soft surface trails, an area to view the natural springs (from which the Town derived its name), multi-age play areas, a village green and future location for the award winning farmers market. Among these new amenities will be a refined water feature surrounded by a path, plazas, benches, and a babbling brook, sure to relax the residents as they listen to the calming sound of the continuously running water. While children play and runners and strollers pass by, this water feature will be hard at work under the surface. This isn’t just any ordinary water feature, it is part of a large scale regional stormwater device that has been engineered to retain and clean stormwater from over 20 acres of the downtown area.
Besides being an amenity for the residents of Holly Springs, the Town wants to ignite downtown development by providing this stormwater treatment and storage for the surrounding properties. Future development in the drainage basin, which is bound by Raleigh St, Ballentine St, Avent Ferry Rd, and Earp St will have more real estate for their properties to devote to building areas, parking, sidewalks, landscaping and pedestrian focused uses. Properties within the drainage basin that were constructed prior to this project, without stormwater control and treatment measures, will now have their runoff captured and treated before being discharged into nearby streams. Design is underway and nearing completion for this first phase of the Mims Park. The Town is looking forward to what else this project will bring to this charming area.
The town hopes to have the ground-breaking in the Spring of 2017.
