New park coming to the North Highlands Community

The park will have a walking trail and a safe place to play basketball.

MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – Macon-Bibb County announced a new passive park Wednesday that will give kids in one community a safe place to play.

The new “North Highland Park” is being created by Historic Macon Foundation. The Community Foundation of Central Georgia gave Historic Macon $180,000 in grant money to complete the work needed to make the park.

Historic Macon noticed a need for a park on Boulevard in Macon after noticing a group of children playing basketball in the street every night.

Ethiel Garlington with the Historic Macon Foundation says the organization has been working to restore this neighborhood for five years and sees the park as a victory.

“Neighbors here were early supporters of our neighborhood leadership institute program, and so the park today is a very exciting progress towards improving the neighborhood,” Garlington said. “It’s helping them fulfill some of their dreams for the neighborhood and so the commission’s tentative approval yesterday is very exciting and puts us one step closer toward getting the park accomplished.”

It will be a passive park, which means it would be easy to miss if you don’t know it’s there. Parks like this are built to blend in with a neighborhood, so it doesn’t draw large crowds.

North Highland Park will have a walking trail and a special area for the neighborhood kids to safely play basketball.