Raleigh's massive Gipson Play Plaza will open in June

Axios

30-04-2025

Across the Triangle, cities are pouring tens of millions of dollars into building new public gathering spaces for residents hungry to take advantage of new amenities in their fast-growing communities.
Why it matters: Since it opened in late 2023, Downtown Cary Park has been a catalyst for downtown Cary's resurgence from an afterthought destination to one that attracts individuals and families from across the region.
The $68 million park — featuring large play areas, common spaces and even a bar — has attracted new development and new businesses around the edges of the park.
Driving the news: In June, Raleigh hopes to capture a similar energy when it opens Gipson Play Plaza in Dix Park.
Gipson Play Plaza is a $69 million interactive area that leaders hope will serve as the new entrance to Dix Park and attract tens of thousands of visitors. A large portion of the plaza's funding comes from a $275 million parks bond Raleigh voters approved in 2022.
It's one of the first phases of Raleigh's long-term plans to turn Dix Park into one of the leading urban parks in the country.
Between the lines: Mitchell Silver, a Raleigh City Council member and former New York City parks commissioner, told Axios that cities risk falling behind if they're not investing in gathering spaces.
"If we want to build a great city you have to have amazing public spaces," he said while on a trip with the council to Kansas City, where he learned about that city's park efforts.
"We don't have many of those [great gathering spaces] in Southern cities," he added. "It's important to make [Dix Park] that social gathering place."
Zoom in: The 18.5-acre Play Plaza will feature several playgrounds and gathering spaces, including a waterfall wall, picnic grove, food vendors and skywalks.
State of play: The success of Downtown Cary Park comes up frequently at gatherings across the Triangle, with residents wishing something similar existed near them or as a source of comparison to existing parks.
That was true in Durham last week, when its city council gathered to discuss making improvements to Durham Central Park and studied a presentation that featured images from parks across the country, including Downtown Cary's.
A great city is "deserving of a great space like this," Durham City Council Member Nate Baker said at the meeting. He noted that he and his colleagues "look around to our neighbors in Cary and Raleigh and Dix Park and all of the work that is going into great parks."
What's next: The Durham City Council will discuss making more improvements to Durham Central Park later this spring, and it's also studying the future of the historic Durham Athletic Park as another potential gathering space.
Durham Mayor Leonardo Williams told Axios that improving those downtown spaces is a "high priority," but the price of those changes will need to be studied carefully, with many residents feeling the sting of large property value increases.
Silver, for his part, hopes Raleigh uses the momentum of Gipson to invest more in its downtown spaces — specifically making Nash Square more active and bridging the roughly 1.5-mile gap between Dix Park and downtown.