The City of Suwanee broke ground on September 26 at 4 pm on the long-awaited expansion of Town Center Park on Main and the DeLay Nature Park. 

Mayor Jimmy Burnette, the City Council, representatives from Reeves Young, Clark Patterson Lee, Gwinnett County Library, and other community members were on hand for the ceremonial groundbreaking.

The 25-acre site was purchased in 2002 as an early acquisition of the community-driven comprehensive park and open space initiative. The Suwanee City Council unanimously approved a master plan for a future city park in September 2019. The dual parks will transform the area, creating a cohesive “neighborhood” to encompass the Suwanee library, PlayTown Suwanee, Fire Station 13, and result in the rerouting of Main Street and median closure on Lawrenceville-Suwanee Road.

City officials worked with a team of professionals and sought input from community members via stakeholder interviews, over 1,000 in-person and online surveys of park users, four planning workshops, two design charrettes, and a variety of other meetings and presentations. Concepts were developed and refined through this process with the needs and wants of stakeholders in mind. The community input led to a design that maximizes the opportunities of the site and provides diverse experiences.

Town Center on Main will be an urban-style greenspace with a unique character, personality, and purpose, similar to but separate from the existing Town Center Park. The Suwanee library will serve as the anchor for this new space much like the way City Hall relates to the existing park. The majority of the site – roughly 15 of the wooded 25 acres along the existing Brushy Creek Greenway – will remain largely undisturbed as the DeLay Nature Park.

Once completed, Town Center Park and Town Center on Main will function as a unified space, linked by Station Park (located next to the police station) and the pedestrian tunnel under the railroad. The topography of the new park will allow it to overlook Town Center, further enhancing the relationship of the two spaces.

The park plan features a mixture of urban and rural environments, including:

• A roughly 900-foot, elevated signature bridge for pedestrian and bicycle use, spanning the entire park and crossing a one-acre water feature,
• An open terrace plaza at the peak of the park’s elevation with large-scale pavilions,
• Sandpit volleyball courts, and
• An iconic public art piece.

A big change this area will see is the realignment of Main Street, which will shift around the park and exit onto Suwanee Dam Road at the traffic signal and the new Gwinnett County fire station (currently under construction). This shift will close the existing median break on Suwanee Dam Road at the existing Main Street, greatly improving the safety and traffic flow at that intersection.

“The success of Town Center Park has exceeded all expectations,” said Mayor Jimmy Burnette. “The park draws over 300,000 visitors annually to events, as well as regularly serving our 20,000 citizens. The new park will help ease the demand on the existing park and surrounding community.”