Johns Creek opens Boardwalk park at Town Center in phases

Johns Creek’s new Boardwalk at Town Center is open to the public, giving the city a 20-acre lakefront-style gathering place beside City Hall with pond overlooks, terraced seating and a 15-foot-wide trail. The north and south pond areas are already open, while crews finish punch-list work and a pedestrian crossing and tunnel over Medlock Bridge Road remain slated for summer 2026.

The park sits on Medlock Bridge Road between Johns Creek Parkway and East Johns Crossing and is meant to function as more than a green buffer. The Boardwalk includes pedestrian plazas and an amphitheater or bandshell, tying into the Town Center sidewalk network and extending the city’s push to create a recognizable downtown core where residents can walk, linger and gather outdoors.

That public-space strategy is part of a much larger redevelopment effort. Johns Creek Town Center covers 192 acres of a former business park and is being built out with a new 40-acre mixed-use retail district alongside the park. The city has also invested $3.5 million in landscape and streetscape work in the area using TSPLOST funds, a sign that the Boardwalk is being treated as an anchor for the broader district rather than a stand-alone amenity.

City leaders have already used the site as a civic stage. Mayor John Bradberry delivered the 2026 State of the City address there on March 26, calling it “a new gathering place” and “a glimpse into the future.” The Boardwalk then served as the backdrop for its grand opening and summer concert on Friday, May 8, when the city held a ribbon cutting before Boy Band Review. Music Authority’s Eclipse, one of the city’s Battle of the Bands winners, opened the event.

The phased opening matters because Johns Creek is trying to shape how Town Center feels while the buildout continues. Medley, the $560 million, 43-acre mixed-use project at the center of the broader plan, broke ground in January 2025 and was tentatively slated for a late-2026 grand opening. City materials describe the larger Town Center effort as a transformation of a former business park into a walkable district with housing, retail, offices, parks and public pathways.

For Johns Creek, the Boardwalk is now doing double duty: it is a park residents can use today, and a visible test of whether the city can turn an office corridor into a destination with its own civic identity.