Behind The Scenes at the Downtown Cary Park: A Conversation with Joy Ennis

Join us in this episode as we sit down with Joy Ennis, the general manager of Downtown Cary Park, who has played a pivotal role in transforming Cary over the past two decades. Learn about the park's dynamic features, including the award-winning playground The Nest, and discover the fascinating stories behind its design and sustainability efforts. Joy also shares her journey, challenges, and many events that make the park the best place for family fun. Tune in to hear about the unique festivals, like the Pimento Cheese Festival, and more exciting developments in downtown Cary.

00:00 Introduction to Joy Ennis and Downtown Cary Park
01:19 A Tour of Downtown Cary Park
02:06 Joy Ennis' Journey with the Town of Cary
03:30 Design and Construction of the Park
06:07 The Role of Plants and Sustainability
17:00 Events and Activities at Downtown Cary Park
18:09 Unique Festivals and Community Engagement
23:26 Future Plans and Personal Insights
25:54 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Creators and Guests

Host

Melissa

Host of What's Up, Wake + social media manager + writer + travel editor

Producer

Joe "Buttons" Woolworth

Owner of Podcast Cary and pusher of buttons.

Guest

Joy Ennis

General Manager, Cary Downtown Park

What is What’s Up, Wake?

What’s Up, Wake covers the people, places, restaurants, and events of Wake County, North Carolina. Through conversations with local personalities from business owners to town staff and influencers to volunteers, we’ll take a closer look at what makes Wake County an outstanding place to live. Presented by Cherokee Media Group, the publishers of local lifestyle magazines Cary Magazine, Wake Living, and Main & Broad, What’s Up, Wake covers news and happenings in Raleigh, Cary, Morrisville, Apex, Holly Springs, Fuquay-Varina, and Wake Forest.

016 What's Up Wake- Joy Ennis
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Melissa: [00:00:00] My guest today has been an integral part of town of Cary for over two decades. If you've attended a festival or had any fun in Carrie, she probably planned it. She received the Lifetime Achievement Award at Carrie Magazine's Women of Western Wake Forum in 2022, honoring her years of service, innovative programming, and love of our community.

Now general manager of downtown Cary Park, joy [00:01:00] Ennis is a key reason why downtown Cary Park was named Best Place for Family Fun and our 2025 Cary magazine. Maggie Awards here to talk about all things Downtown Cary Park. I'm honored to have Joy Ennis with us today. Hi Joy. Hi. Thank you for having me. You are very welcome.

It is my pleasure. So for those who have not visited the park yet, let me paint a picture. It's an urban oasis that opened in November, 2023. The seven acre park has scenic trails, cozy sitting spots, a playground dog park, all in the heart of downtown Cary. All this sounds like your typical park. Yet everything at downtown Cary Park has magnified and magnificent.

The Nest, for example, which is the playground featuring a 20 foot tall wooden cardinal was just named Best Playground in America by USA today. That is quite remarkable. So now that I have [00:02:00] painted the scene, let's talk about how you became involved with downtown. Wow, that's a long

Joy Ennis: story. I have been working with the town of Cary for close to 24 years, and I've done a wide range of things ranging from festival and event planning which would be the Lazy Days Festival that's coming up in August.

One of my favorites. Yeah, it's fantastic. Street dances ribbon cuttings, all kinds of events. I was planning those. And then in 2014 I was tapped to move over to open the Cary theater, which is the Art House Theater down on Chatham Street. And I did that for about six years and the park was coming online.

And with having the outdoor experience and the indoor programming experience and running a facility, I was able to move into the job of running the park. And I thought you, it's it was, it interesting [00:03:00] because when I was looking at it, I thought, wow, this is a huge job. This is gonna be a lot of work.

The second thought I had was, if you don't do this, you're gonna regret it forever because this is an amazing project and it's gonna be transformative. And so with all of that experience that I had going through the years, I was able to move over. And even then, you don't know what you're doing when you first start a project that big.

So there was a lot of learning that had to happen, but it was really fascinating.

Melissa: So when did you step in? Was it while the park was already being built? Did you have any input for like design or anything like that with the park? I did

Joy Ennis: have input. It was fascinating the way the process worked for the design of the park, there was an enormous amount of community input and staff input throughout the process.

But when I came on as staff for the park, the pro, the park was in 50% design phase, which means it was 50% designed and then the [00:04:00] rest of the 50% we were still working out. And the reason that was. So important was because I could come in and look at the plans from an operational perspective and say, this door is beautiful, not in the right place.

Or a good example is the arena that we have in Park Street Courts was originally supposed to be sand and the more I looked at it, the more I thought, what am I gonna do with all the sand? How am I gonna keep this sand in there and looking, which we know

Melissa: is not possible.

Joy Ennis: That's correct. So what we did was we, I brought this concern to the team and we were able to convert to a artificial turf, which has made it much more multifunctional.

We can do a lot more things there. So having me, it was a different perspective. We had the designers, we had the people that are building it. We had the rest of the design team from the town and then me as the operator who was gonna be there after everybody finished up and went home. Yeah. You're the one that has to deal with all the

Melissa: sand.[00:05:00]

Joy Ennis: That's right. So it was a very fascinating process. So I was able to participate in the last part of the design, and then I was there for all of the construction, which was super fun. I loved it. I'm sure

Melissa: it was I really can't even imagine. And I don't think anybody could imagine that type of.

Not just responsibility and role, but the fun side of it too. It

Joy Ennis: was fun. It was interesting at the very beginning construction folks talk in acronyms and we would be in a meeting and they would throw out this and that and the other. And I would go home and try to Google and figure out you don't wanna look.

Like you don't know. You have to decode everything they said. And I finally thought, this is ridiculous. So I went back and was like, I don't know what you're talking about. Catch me up. And they just all laughed and they're like, this is what we're talking about. And it was way easier after I just admitted what I didn't know.

Melissa: Yeah. Yeah. That's actually a good lesson for all of us. Just speak up, ask for layman's terms. Yeah. And then your life might be a little bit smoother. [00:06:00]

Joy Ennis: It made me more effective because Good. Because I was like, oh, I know what you're talking about now I can give you some good feedback.

Melissa: I painted the picture for what the park looks like, but I also want to explain to people that have not been to.

Downtown c in a while, it has been completely transformed, and I think the park plays a major role in that, but things have been built up and it's really been done in a super tasteful way because you see a lot of towns and cities. Rally is an example that the downtowns have been built literally up It changes the vibe, I guess I should say, but downtown Cary still has a homey feeling. Mm-hmm. Yet it's super cool. the park has, I think, played a key role in that, and I want to talk about how everything has built up, but yet. [00:07:00] The park is so green and lush and all the plantings and there's shade gardens and pollinator gardens and perEnnisal gardens there. The plantings itself, that kind of ground, for lack of better word, no pun intended, that whole area. Yeah.

Joy Ennis: Yes. in the original planting, there were over 66,000 plants that were put in and over 600 trees, and I think we're now up to 73,000 plants because we have a horticulturalist on staff who is award-winning.

And I was wondering who is

Melissa: in charge of the plants because it's he does he or she does

Joy Ennis: a, an amazing job? Yes. His name is Pat McMillan and he has, is amazing. He is. Got so much experience that he's brought to us and we have an amazing grounds team that work alongside him as well. you're right that the plantings and the gardens are the glue, I call it the glue that really holds the park together.

Because you've got the rain gardens that actually serve a purpose for stormwater abatement and [00:08:00] moving water here and there. That comes from wherever it comes. But. generally for the public. They're just beautiful. it's amazing, especially now, it's so green because everything's come out and it was exciting for us to see what had overwintered and what is coming back, and there's very little that we've had to replace, which is exciting, which tells us that having a horticulturalist on staff, who really knows when to prune and why to prune and things like that, it is only gonna get better.

He does tours all the time with garden clubs and school groups and things to talk about. The reasons we have certain plants in certain areas and why this native plant is important or this is a hybrid and that kind of thing. It's really fun to see.

Melissa: I'm sure it is. And you mentioned the rainwater.

One thing I read about the park was that sustainability played a big role in the planning of the park. So can you speak to the sustainability [00:09:00] factor that was involved? Yeah, absolutely.

Joy Ennis: the biggest thing in the park that's really sustainable is our storm water feature, which we just call a beautiful water amenity.

So in the middle of the park there's a babbling brook, and then it, the babbling brook flows into a middle pond that flows into a lower pond. And that entire structure is a storm water catchment basin. And it's doing a really interesting thing because it's abating flooding for the whole downtown block area, not just the park.

Oh. Downstream there was, they really needed to look big picture with that. They did look big picture, and because the stormwater pond is rated for a 500 year flood, like this week, when we get in all the rain, it's gonna, it's gonna rise up. But underground where people don't see where all the magic is there's an enormous fault.

And in the vault, there's a catchment basin. when the water gets up to a certain level, the catchment basin will fill up. Then it's released slowly downstream, so it's not just [00:10:00] gushing. And that has really proven to be very successful in not only supporting what we need in the park for stormwater catchment and providing a beautiful water amenity that provides sound and habitat for, we have enormous bull frogs that live in the pond and lots of dragon flies and things like that.

So this sustainability effort to look beyond the park was very important for the town to just, we're doing this big thing, let's look and see how we can adapt this solution to other things.

Melissa: One thing that I read also about the park was about the original owner and how he had a lot of trees.

Yeah. And you look at these trees to imagine that. Perhaps they are the ancestors no, not ancestors. The descendants Yes. Of the original owner's trees. Can you talk about that a little bit? I

Joy Ennis: can. We, when we were doing research we found this map, and on the map it was labeled park.[00:11:00]

And the gentleman that owned the property where the park is, was, had been developed around the edges with some housing, but it had never developed on the interior. So there was a large area of land that had just been there. There was a creek and several geese and a grapevine I think. And Ben Savage bought this property in the late 18 hundreds and had a nursery called the Valley, I think it was called the Valley Rose.

And. The Rose Farm, I don't know. It was roses and trees he planted nut trees every year. And so there's some pecan trees still on the property that we believe are his, that he planted over 120 years ago. But it's interesting to us, once we found this map, this property is always been wanting to be a park.

It's just finally, it took it a long time to get there, but now it's what it has always wanted to be. So it's been, yeah, because on the map it was labeled parked. It was labeled parked. Now it is a park. That's

Melissa: right. What would you think are some of the biggest challenges, not only bringing the park to life, [00:12:00] but some that you might still encounter today?

Joy Ennis: That's an interesting question. I think maintaining a park of this size to the level that it should be maintained has, is a daily challenge. There's always something that is maybe broken or just through ma regular wear and tear. So having our maintenance staff really be on top of that is always a challenge, but they're so dedicated to that.

And also finding ways to educate the public on. Perhaps maybe don't walk in the plant bed. Things like that. That's always interesting. And kids will go where they will go, right? And just educating them in really kind ways that maybe you shouldn't be in that pond, or

Melissa: maybe that's not the best idea.

Maybe not skinny dip in that bond today, maybe yet.

It does sound to me like you're Park, park Ranger. [00:13:00] Part event planner, part crew Wrangler. You're a little bit of everything. Yeah, I would say so. So day to day there's got to be a different, something that comes up.

Joy Ennis: We have a story of the day, every day. There's always something interesting that's happening.

Today we are looking at the splash pad and oh, those jets are going a little bit higher than we should. And what are we gonna do about that? And how are we gonna adjust that and the water's shooting the wrong direction or there's somebody is lost and children get lost.

They never stay lost for long, I promise. Mm-hmm. I, they're always, usually in the birds and so there's always something going on. But the interesting thing about it is that our staff is so well trained that. They never panic when something goes on, they just start troubleshooting. I like, okay, this is what I would think.

Melissa: That's a key factor Yes. In having a good team. That's right. Yeah. And when you're dealing with the public, you never know you know what you're gonna get.

Joy Ennis: The public does a lot of interesting things.

Melissa: Yes,

Joy Ennis: they do. [00:14:00] They do. that's a nice way of putting it. It's, and they can be good things or not so good things, but.

At the end of the day, there's a lot of people in the park that are very engaged with it, and they feel like it's theirs and that's what we want, and they're there to make memories. That's definitely what we want.

Melissa: Yeah. Lots of memories, lots of pictures and selfies and Yeah. Instagram posts and all that good stuff.

there's so many every section of the park has a different. Instagramable shot, I would say. [00:15:00] Oh, that's great to hear. I even brought my daughter and her friends out to the park before a dance, because there's so many backdrops for pretty pictures. We've seen a lot of prom pictures.

Oh yeah. Yes. Yeah. Hers was a winter dance. And even in the winter, the, it is just, it's always green. It's always green. It's always pretty. There's something to photograph out there. So having a park in the middle of a town like this. It is supposed to spark economic development.

And I talked about how Cary has really grown so much around the park. Have you been surprised at how much it's meant to downtown Cary? I'm

Joy Ennis: not sure I've been surprised how much it's meant. I think we all knew that it was gonna be transformative. Because of the quality and the Cary that was put into it and the thought, and it was, it came in a time in the revitalization of the downtown that I think it was, the town was very ripe for it because the Cary theater was really the first, the Cary theater and the pharmacy were [00:16:00] the really first efforts that the town put in terms of.

Investment in the downtown. And I can remember the day I was at the Cary theater, I was at the front desk and usually late at night after the late movie, people would. Would ask me what they should do. And I said I guess you go home. But I remember standing there and they were seeing people walk past the theater at nine at night and I thought, oh my, this is working.

That was the first time I really saw it. And then that grew from there. And then when the park came on, I think the private investors had really. Bought into the vision as well. And there was public private partnerships going on. There was developments that were seeing what the park could bring and what it could do.

they were betting on it a little bit, I think, because you make a decision before the park comes. They were betting on the success of this, and it's so fascinating to see how all of these people believed that the park would even advance it farther than it [00:17:00] was.

Melissa: Events are rampant, and I'm sure that's a huge part of what you are doing at downtown Cary Park is managing all the events and scheduling events.

The number that I have, I believe is old, but the park has hosted nearly a thousand programs. I believe that is on the low end. That was about in her first year. That was right.

Joy Ennis: Okay. It was around 900, but it was certainly. Higher than the benchmark was 500 for the first year, and we didn't even have really a whole first year.

We were about five, about 900.

Melissa: And you get at least 40,000 people visit the park each month. Is that right? We have a lot. I kept on double checking that number because it sounds

Joy Ennis: really big. We had well over a half a million people come through in the first year. Wow. Yeah. And we count people in all kinds of different ways and we count the number of dogs and we count.

So girls, boys, [00:18:00] kids. So we have a lot of data, but it was well over a million. Half a million. Sorry, half a million. It seemed like a million. I'm sure

Melissa: it did seem like a million. One of my favorite events that you host is the Pimento Cheese Festival, and for those who have not been to that, it, you guys have dozens of food trucks.

All of them are required to have pimento cheese items on their menu. There's cheese sculpting contest, a pimento cheese contest is it individual makers, but also like bakeries and delis can enter the contest. It

Joy Ennis: can be a combination of those businesses and restaurants and individual makers, and they all vie for the best pimento cheese of the year.

Melissa: So I consider myself a connoisseur pimento cheese, and I'm gonna be vying for a spot on the judge's table one day. But one of the judges is the publisher of Kerry Magazine, Chris, and he likes to brag that he's a judge by Chris. So I'd like to know how [00:19:00] this particular festival came to be, because it is kind of a random theme.

Joy Ennis: It has a kind of interesting story. one of the staff, our staff members, his name is Ryan, who is the, and coordinates this event started at seven years ago when we were tasked to bring events into the downtown as this revitalization was happening. he's a foodie, so he came up with this idea about pied cheese and he took it to our department director who promptly said, that's a terrible idea.

That is horrible. Nobody's gonna come. And he lobbied for it for so long until everybody relented and said yes. In the first year. Tons of people came. So it, now it's a running joke in our department that it's the festival that wasn't supposed to happen. and I'm sure

Melissa: Ryan brags that he was right.

And everybody else was

Joy Ennis: wrong. We do we tease our department director mercilessly about it. it's been one of those things that it is such a random idea. It is so rooted in the South in [00:20:00] terms of food culture, pied cheese, that it just worked and you're correct, people are very divided on pied cheese.

Yeah. You love it or you hate it. There's not really a in-between for those and we have found that focusing on a really unique food stuff and a really unique idea and being really specific about it was the magic sauce.

Melissa: Yeah. What other events do you have that are your favorites or unique things that you guys do throughout the year?

Joy Ennis: We have a wonderful concert series that brings in artists that tour nationally. We have our movie series that we let the public vote on this year, so we're choosing, the movies. That was helpful. Those are really fun and they're really family oriented. We're, we do night markets, which we have partners on to do them.

We're working on an an event coming up for October called Barto Fest. Which all centers around dogs. And as a dog lover, I was very supportive of [00:21:00] this. But it's also partnering with a lo with the local a i a chapter and they build like custom dog houses and structures for dogs and cats. And as architects, they're all very unique and they auction them off and the money goes to support rescue operations.

So that's a fun event that's coming up. And just even the small events that we do, like Toddler Tuesday where we provide activities for parents to bring their little ones out. All of the different levels and sizes of events mailed together to make a really interesting model for us to program the park upon.

Melissa: It's really something for everyone. Truly because you had a Star Wars Day event. I'm assuming on May the fourth. May the fourth in October, I'm hoping you're doing this again. I know last October you guys had, was it a zombie night? I can't remember what it was called. Zombie palooza.

Yes. Yes.

Joy Ennis: Yeah. Fun story about that was I started that event at the Cary [00:22:00] theater Oh. As a way to c get the community to come in and make a little five minute zombie film, as a family or all the kids in the neighborhood come, could come together. And so when we. Opened the park. we like to collaborate a lot with our other partners.

The Kerry Theater, the Kerry Arts Center, other groups in the parks department because there's so much talent there that are producing wonderful programs and we were able to circle it back and bring it to the. To the park, which gives it much more space to bring. We had nearly 2000 people there.

it was fun. It was like seeing my little baby come home,

Melissa: I'm sure. And you mentioned the talent, the, there were high school kids. With full zombie makeup on. And it was, they were incredible. Not only the makeup talent, but their acting skills. They were creepy. Yeah. People are serious about zombies.

Yes, they are. Yes they are. But it was, it's a really fun event. I. Where can we learn more about all the events that you guys have going on? [00:23:00] If you go to

Joy Ennis: downtown Cary park.com we have a calendar there and all of our events are listed on the calendar. You can also sign up to be, I. A member of our newsletter group and we send out a monthly newsletter that kind of highlights something in the park, gives things that are upcoming.

And then our social media is always active. We are on predominantly Facebook and Instagram.

Melissa: Yeah. You guys have a great social media. It is time for our What's up Roundup, where I ask a lightning round series of questions to end our interview, and this one will be park themed.

Okay. If that's okay? Yes. If you had to choose another dish other than pimento cheese to base a festival on, what would it be?

Joy Ennis: Another dish.

Melissa: I will admit for our listeners, my, my round of questions for her this time are a little bit more challenging and thought provoking.

Joy Ennis: I'm gonna go with barbecue.

Melissa: [00:24:00] That's, yeah, that's a natural one. Mm-hmm. For North Carolina, if you had endless amounts of space, what would you add to the park? You are a little bit confined with space. We are. if you had endless amounts, what would you want? I think it would add more botanical gardens. Nice. Yeah. Yeah. Even more greenery.

More plants. Mm-hmm. The Nest was named Best playground in America. What was your favorite playground equipment as a kid? You a slide girl. I like the

Joy Ennis: monkey bars. Oh gosh,

Melissa: I forgot about monkey bars. Nowadays we are, we're Caryful with our little children that monkey bars are almost a thing of the past.

I know we need to bring those back because we need to toughen these kids up. Are there any Easter eggs in the park, like little special details that maybe an average goer might not recognize?

Joy Ennis: There's a lot of round things. [00:25:00] Our buildings are round, our middle pond is round. There's lots of circles that you can find.

The water

Melissa: fountain? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't notice that. But I will. From now on, you have a free Saturday morning with no events at the park. What are you doing with your morning? I'm painting. Oh, okay. you're an artist? I do. Or you painted walls? No, I'm

Joy Ennis: paint. I like to paint.

I'm not an artist. I'm not sure I'd call myself an artist, but I do like to create canvases, a lot of multimedia paintings and all over my house and my husband's okay, are you gonna stop? I'm like, it's calming to me.

Melissa: Mm-hmm.

Joy Ennis: And I took it up just as a. As a hobby.

As a relaxation.

Melissa: Okay. Yeah, that's a good one though. That's a nice

Joy Ennis: relaxing hobby to have. It's fun when you, but, and the great thing about it is if you paint it and you hate it, you just paint over it and start again. That is true. Yeah. Just

Melissa: cover up that same canvas. Thank you so much, joy for coming today.

I'm so glad to hear. It's been a pleasure talking to you.

[00:26:00]