On the evening of July 31, members of American Legion Post 68 and VFW Post 12196 stood beside North Brunswick High School's JROTC cadets and presented the colors in front of a brand-new amphitheater on Town Hall Drive. Behind them, a crowd that had been promised this moment since 2020 settled into lawn chairs. The Embers, featuring Craig Woolard, took the stage at 6 p.m. By 8, Leland finally had what it had spent six years trying to build: a finished public square.
Here's the part that doesn't show up in the press releases. For most of those six years, if you wanted the actual feeling of a town gathering in Leland, you didn't go to the town's own park. You went to a private development.
Six years, one ribbon
Leland's town council adopted the master plan for what's now called Founders Park back in March 2020. The site, formerly known as Leland Municipal Park, was slated for an amphitheater, a splash pad, a veterans memorial, an inclusive playground, walking trails and fitness stations. Renovation work didn't actually begin until late 2023, and it didn't go smoothly. The town eventually reached a settlement with its original general contractor and closed out that portion of the project, carving the amphitheater out as a separate phase to finish.
The park reopened in stages. Residents got their first look at the renovated grounds during the town's Leland in Lights holiday event in December 2025. The splash pad came online in spring 2026 and was, by the town's own account, one of the most popular things families did all summer. The amphitheater, the piece everyone had actually been waiting on, was the last domino, and it didn't fall until July 31.
That's not a short timeline for a town park. It's long enough that an entire generation of Leland's public gathering habits formed somewhere else.
While it waited, Leland built its own gathering spots
Drive a few minutes from Town Hall Drive into Brunswick Forest and you'll find the version of "town center" that filled the gap. The Villages at Brunswick Forest, anchored by a Lowes Foods grocery store, has spent years hosting the kind of casual civic life a finished town square would normally carry. There's an annual car show that draws more than 100 vehicles to the Lowes Foods lot every August. Christopher's Steakhouse & Seafood and Shuckin' Shack Oyster Bar became the default answer to "where's everyone eating tonight." None of that is town-owned. It's a private development's commercial hub doing double duty as the neighborhood's living room.
Residents didn't stop there. When a group of Leland pickleball players wanted a real facility, they didn't wait on the town. They raised private money, built the House of Pickleball a mile south of Brunswick Forest's main entrance, and grew it from six outdoor courts in 2018 to a 30,000-square-foot indoor facility with twelve courts by 2023. The HOP is explicitly not a Brunswick Forest amenity. It's privately owned, built by residents who saw a need the town hadn't met yet and filled it themselves.
Barnes Sutton, Leland's economic and community development director, put the intent behind Founders Park plainly once it was finally done:
"There was a lot of community effort. The whole idea was to create something in the original part of Leland that is accessible for everyone and has something for everyone."
The phrase worth sitting with is "the original part of Leland." For years, the town's civic energy had drifted toward its newest private developments almost by default, because that's where the finished gathering spaces actually were.
What actually opened on July 31
The reopened park includes a veterans memorial with a tribute stone honoring U.S. Army Specialist 4 John E. Jacobs, killed in action in Vietnam in October 1968. Jacobs is the namesake of American Legion Post 68, which means the memorial isn't a generic gesture. It ties the park directly to a specific person and a specific local organization that's been part of the community for decades.
Herman Bland, pastor of Kingdom Believers Outreach, was at the reopening and described what the finished park does that the years of construction fencing couldn't:
"It really brings the whole community together because we see all the vendors from all walks of life, churches, small businesses. It brings us all together."
That mix showed up in the vendor list from opening night: Animal House Wilmington, Chick-fil-A Leland Town Center, Lifepoint Church, GLOW Academy, and the Leland Area Rotary Club all set up alongside the American Legion and VFW posts. Food trucks included Glizzies on the Go, Hanna's Hawaiian Ice, Taste N Seize, Seaview Crab Company and Old South Pretzel Company. The park's first beer garden poured from two hometown sources, Leland Brewing Company and Brunswick Beer and Cider.
The lineup that's actually been playing
The town launched a free concert and entertainment series called Live in Leland the same night, and it's been running weekly at the amphitheater since.
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| July 31 | Grand opening, featuring The Embers with Craig Woolard |
| Aug. 13 | Departure: The Journey Tribute Band |
| Aug. 21 | Aesop's Fables, presented by the Brunswick Arts Council |
| Aug. 27 | The British Invaders |
| Sept. 3 | Dear MariBella and the Pig Kickers |
If you're reading this the week it's published, the next show is Thursday. That's the point. This isn't a one-night ribbon-cutting the town will point to for years. It's a park that's already generating a weekly rhythm, three days from now, not three months from now.
What's already booked next
The town's parks calendar has kept filling in past that first run of concerts. Confirmed dates already on the books include a kayak outing at Cypress Cove Park on Sept. 4, Battle of the Bowls at Founders Park on Sept. 17, a Latin Dance night at the Leland Cultural Arts Center on Sept. 18, and a Fall Festival back at Founders Park on Oct. 24. The town also installed two dual-port Level 2 EV charging stations at the park this summer, free to use while you're at the playground, the library, or the Brunswick Center at Leland next door. None of that reads like a park coasting on opening-week momentum. It reads like a town treating this address as infrastructure it intends to keep using.
If you're headed there Thursday
A few things worth knowing before you go:
- Concerts run 6 to 8 p.m. at 113 Town Hall Drive, and admission is free.
- Coolers are welcome, but outside alcohol is prohibited since the beer garden is the only alcohol source on site.
- Bring your own chair or blanket. The lawn is the seating.
- Parking at the park is limited. Overflow lots are available at First Baptist Church on Village Road and North Brunswick High School, both connected to the park by multi-use paths.
- Weather cancellations get posted to the town's website and social channels, so check before you load the car.
What's changed isn't just that Leland has a nicer park now. It's that the town's own square, the one at 113 Town Hall Drive rather than the one inside a private development's shopping hub, is finally the place where a Thursday night in Leland actually happens.
If you're weighing a move to this side of the Cape Fear River and want a read on what daily life here really looks like, block by block, Sherwood Strickland can walk you through Leland's neighborhoods with the same eye for detail. Request a Red Carpet Consultation and let's talk about what fits.
