Raleigh celebrates Strickland Road Park upgrades with June 24 event

Strickland Road Park is getting the kind of upgrades that change how a neighborhood park gets used on an ordinary summer afternoon: a permanent restroom, an accessible paved path, a new overlook, safer playground surfacing and a better parking lot. Raleigh Parks will mark the work with a celebration on Wednesday, June 24, from 3 to 5 p.m. at 12804 Strickland Road in northwest Raleigh.

The event is more than a ribbon-cutting. It is a public rollout for a $2 million parks bond project approved by Raleigh voters in 2022, part of a city effort to improve both Strickland Road Park and nearby Leesville Community Park. Raleigh says the project follows its public participation process and reflects a broader push to add permanent restroom facilities and other long-term amenities at neighborhood parks.

At Strickland Road Park, the improvements are aimed at a 36.1-acre park that dates to 1998 and sits west of the Ray Road and Strickland Road intersection. City materials describe it as a hidden gem, with nature trails, two small ponds and an overlook, plus playground areas for children ages 2 to 5 and 5 to 12. The new accessible path and overlook area should make that landscape easier to reach for walkers, parents with strollers and older residents who want a shorter, smoother route through the park.

Raleigh Parks says the celebration will include music, refreshments and a visit from the Raleigh Police Department Mounted Patrol, a family-friendly draw that fits the park’s role as a local gathering place. The city has not framed the work as a single new attraction, but as a set of fixes that should make the park more usable day to day, from stormwater improvements to fresh playground surfacing and electric vehicle charging stations.

The project runs from 2024 to 2026 and reached a key milestone when the Parks, Recreation and Greenway Advisory Board approved the schematic design in February 2024. Leesville Community Park is being improved under the same bond-funded effort. Raleigh describes that 56-acre park at 5105 Country Trail as getting an expanded playground, new safety surfacing and fencing, a swing, picnic area, paved trailhead, reading nook, new restroom building and an EV charging station.

Taken together, the two park projects show how Raleigh is trying to turn bond dollars into visible neighborhood amenities. For families, walkers and kids in northwest Raleigh, the payoff is not abstract: it is a park visit with fewer workarounds and more places to stay awhile.