In March 2024, Searcy citizens voted to approve a 110 million dollar bond to fund a state-of-the-art sports park, community center, and aquatic center with updated soccer fields. Crafton Tull, Prism Design Studio, and Polk Stanley Architects provided master planning and intricate site design across each phase.

The new community center features sport courts, a climbing wall, and community rooms. A defining feature of the center, is an innovative trail system that weaves through the building itself.

The multiple sites were historically bifurcated by an existing stream in disrepair, marked by flooding and drainage issues. The master plan restored ecological function by reestablishing riparian buffers, realigning the stream channel using natural stream design techniques, creating wetlands to account for flooding, and reopening a portion of the stream that had been culverted. Existing tree canopies were preserved as amenities and integrated with the trail network. 

What we like most about this project:
The trail itself is particularly striking - it begins at near an existing trail, traverses through the soccer field complex, descends through a tunnel beneath a major thoroughfare, emerges to wind through the buildings second floor to then descends back to ground level and continuing through the landscape.