LANDIS — Several times a year, residents in the town of Landis will congregate in a park on North Central Avenue for various community events. Soon, the space that has become the designated meeting place will have a park worthy of its people.

The D.C. and Frances Linn Community Park will transform 115 North Central Avenue in the heart of downtown Landis into a destination for concerts, picnics or just casual strolls.

The park is possible because of the Linns’ vision for a shared community space in the middle of the town that they loved.

According to the Landis website, D.C. was a lifelong Landis resident. Meanwhile, Frances was born in China Grove. D.C. was president and CEO of D.C. Linn Engineering, Kannapolis Transit Mix Concrete and D.C. Linn Inc., where he and Frances worked together. The couple also served on many boards overseeing community projects created to benefit their community. Some of those boards included the South Rowan YMCA, Historic Salisbury Foundation and the Rowan County Sustainable Community Development Commission.

“I don’t claim to be an authority on the Linns, but what I have learned is that they did quite a bit of philanthropic service not just in this community but in Rowan County,” said Michelle Grey, who chairs the committee behind the park’s creation.

That same page described the Linns as world travelers, saying they enjoyed going to parks in every country they visited as they found them tranquil and often serene.

“Linn decided he would like to share that tranquility with the citizens in Landis and set up a donation of land to the town for a future community park,” the website says.

For her part, Grey said that she is eager to see the central location transformed into a landmark that will make Landis proud. She’s also just happy about what the amenities will mean.

“I would really like to see a beautiful green space in our community where I could walk,” she said. “Currently, I drive and walk at 5 a.m. in Kannapolis. I would much prefer to drive a third of that way and come downtown and be able to walk a green space there and take my dogs on walks.”

When she volunteered for the committee, she considered what the park could bring to Landis.

“I think it is a great central area for community events,” she said. “I really liked the idea of having a community park.”

The space is already a centralized meeting place for Landis residents and members of surrounding communities, as it is currently the de facto setting for many of the town’s events. For instance, the Landis Fall Festival happens up and down Central Avenue every year during the harvest season. The temporary amenities of the festivity weave their way through the space, including several of Landis’ historic buildings that remain on the site.

As Grey explained, the new park will utilize those historic buildings, capturing the essence of Landis’ yesteryear and offering a renewed sense of town pride.

“I think that the renewed word is essential,” she said. “We are utilizing some structures that are on that space currently that were preserved. They are historical buildings like the depot. Our jail, which, if you have not seen, is a quick walk in … We have the post office and the doctor’s office as well, so those will be preserved.”

Grey indicated that D.C., a lover of history, especially mechanical history, was intentional in his wishes to see those treasures of Landis’ past incorporated into the community park.

“It is about pride of place where people can observe, in a Main Street area, our historical buildings, but also where we can do exhibits on the history of Landis and have different things being shown,” Grey said. “There are a lot of stories about this town. It’s been through a lot of iterations and I have learned a lot since I have been on the committee that I have found is really interesting.”

That process of self-discovery rests at the core of Grey’s vision for what the park will mean to Landis.

“Finding out who we were and people able to gather to find out who we are,” she said. “I think that gives a very big open space for us to have a variety of community events to bring people together but also just a space to go for moms to play with their kids or sit on a lunch break and have a quiet moment to honor veterans in our veteran’s memorial area.”

Maintaining a park can be expensive. D.C. planned for that. In addition to leaving behind the land for the park, the couple also bequeathed several other properties to be sold, allowing that money to be used instead of leaving behind a tax burden for Landis residents.

“So the properties around town are sold, and that money goes into the maintenance of the park,” Town Manager Michael Ambrose said.
The town is also exploring grant opportunities.

“We’ve got several nonprofits that we’re reaching out to about receiving grant funding,” Ambrose said in 2024. “We’re also looking at (Parks and Recreation Trust Fund) grants. We’ve contacted the state parks and recreation about those.”

As a way to give the town of Landis a vested stock in the park’s creation, the town conceived the idea of selling memorial bricks and park benches.

“These will be engraved,” Gray said at a board meeting in 2024. “There will be three lines, up to 18 characters on each line.”

There will be multiple options for the type of brick that donors want to purchase. Gray explained that if the brick is purchased by, in honor of, or memorializing a veteran, then it will cost $75.

“These will be placed all throughout the park starting with those that are purchased in memorial to veterans in the veterans memorial area,” Gray said.

The other option will be $100 for a citizen or other prospective donor, and those bricks will be scattered throughout other areas of the park.

Brains behind the brick fundraising effort decided it would be a great way for Landis residents to leave their own mark on the town.
Groundbreaking is set for May, with a staggered rollout for various portions of the park.

“We have broken it down into phases so that we could break this larger project into fundable pieces and have done that in a way that we don’t have to redo anything along the way,” Grey said. “In between those phases, we can allow the community to enjoy the park.”

Expanding on that Ambrose said that phase one is “moving the buildings, the doctor’s office, and then making the little Main Street, and also installing a lot of the groundwork, like the sewer, sanitary sewer system for any bathrooms that may be there, water, electrical, any sidewalks, things like that.”

Phase two runs into where they start with fences, sidewalks, lamp posts etc. By phase three, they’ll install bathrooms as well as start landscaping where visitors will start to see some of the park’s elegance.

Phase four involves the concession stand, storage and plant irrigation systems. Finally, phase five will see the finishing touches put on from playground equipment to the wedding arbor.

The full park is expected to cost approximately $6 million, but the ripples of life that its creators hope to give to Landis are sure to be priceless.