Thirteen years after the idea of a passive park in Northeast Cobb first came about, Thursday’s Mabry Park opening astonished even those who most avidly worked to make that dream come true.
The Friends of Mabry Park, a group of citizens pushing for a park, have long called their campaign “Imagine a Place.”
Many of them, along with members of the Mabry family, turned out for the ribbon-cutting and opening festivities, and some were blown away by what they saw.
“Wow. Just wow,” said Cobb commissioner JoAnn Birrell, who has shepherded the Mabry Park idea from the start, and it was one with many stops and starts.
“It was my baby,” she said, her voice breaking a little, “and I’m proud of it today.
“The brilliant tagline, ‘Imagine a Place.’ Here we are. I never it imagined it would look this wonderful, but it is. . . . . I’ve never seen a more beautiful park than Mabry.”
The 26 acres of former Mabry farm land on Wesley Chapel Road, near Sandy Plains Road, still has a rural feel.
The long road leading from Wesley Chapel to the new county park is lined with wooden fencing, as horses graze nearby.
A pond in the middle of the park glistens, with the late-afternoon sun rendering the surface mirror-like.
Kids shout and chatter from swings and the playground. Dogs bark, geese honk and frogs croak.
“Hearing the geese on one side, and the kids on the other, there’s no better serenade to open a park,” said Cobb Commissioner Bob Ott, whose District 2 includes Mabry Park.
Peter Hortman, the current president of the Friends of Mabry Park, also got choked up talking about what for him has been a 10-year journey to this day.
“We couldn’t have gotten here without the community,” he said, rattling off names of other park advocates and asking for a show of hands from those in the Mabry family (about 20 hands went up).
“To the Mabry family,” Hortman said, “what a legacy.”
Hania Whitfield, a former Friends of Mabry Park board member and a resident of nearby Loch Highland, has regularly visited East Cobb Park and Laurel Park in Marietta. She said when she first moved to the county, she heard from neighbors that there were plenty of parks in Cobb, “but most of them had ballfields.”
Mabry Park, she said, “is more than I ever expected.”
Passive parks have been in greater demand in recent years from citizens, Cobb parks and recreation director Jimmy Gisi noted.
He said when the parks department was formed in the 1960s there was a “tremendous” need for athletic fields, to accommodate the growing legions of youth sports leagues.
“The new emphasis that we’ve heard of loud and clear from across the county is a want and a need for more passive parks.”
The county has conducted public input meetings for parks the last two years, and Gisi said “the one resonating message” is that “people are wanting more trails, more passive parkland.”
Of the six recent green space purchases by the county with proceeds from the 2008 Cobb parks bond, all of them—including 18 acres on Ebenezer Road—will have trails and passive green space as part of their master plans that are in development.
“All these amenities you will have right here, in your own backyard, at Mabry Park,” he said.
Mabry Park goes beyond that, in keeping with the farm history of the land. In 2004, the state designated Mabry Farm as a “centennial farm,” meaning it had been a working farm for more than 100 years.
Across the road on Wesley Chapel, a new subdivision is going up on another portion of the Mabry Farm, and the 1915 homestead was razed in early 2018 to make way.
To preserve the farm feel of the park, and to protect its natural surroundings, the county has installed modern technologies.
“You will find that the ecofeatures and attention to nature in this park will second to none,” said Cobb County Manager Rob Hosack, noting that Mabry has only a small amount of impervious surfacing at the parking lot. A retention pond was located near the lake to handle stormwater runoff.
Mabry Park cost $2.85 million to build. The county bought the future park land for $4.3 million in 2008, but the recession put a halt to any further construction plans. A master plan was completed in 2011, and final approval was delayed in late 2017 due to issues over funding.
The park construction was paid for with 2016 SPLOST money, but operating costs (around $105,000 a year) come from the county’s general fund.
Like East Cobb Park, the future building out of Mabry Park will come about based on community desires, including treehouses, another bridge over the lake and holding events there.
“The Friends of Mabry Park doesn’t end today,” Hortman said. “It has a life long beyond today. There’s a lot left to be done.”
For now, there’s plenty to enjoy, and savor: a playground, community garden and picnic pavilion, as well as 1.2 miles of trails.
“I can’t wait to come back here this weekend and walk every bit of it,” Whitfield said. “They’ve not only made this park functional, they’ve made it picturesque.”
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He added that the map is subject to change, and that doing so “is under discussion. We want to hear from people.”