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Public drop-in for Mary Alice Warren community center set Nov. 16-20

By Jim Buice
For the Clemmons Courier

Instead of having just a ribbon-cutting and dedication for Lewisville’s new Mary Alice Warren Community Center, the town is turning the much-anticipated opening into a week-long celebration.

So while the ribbon-cutting on Sunday, Nov. 14, will be held primarily for Lewisville’s boards, committees and individuals who have been involved in the construction and history of the center, a public drop-in will follow Tuesday, Nov. 16, and run each day through Friday of that week from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., and Saturday morning from 9 a.m. to noon.

“We would love to have 3,000 people at our ribbon-cutting, but we’re trying to avoid the issues with COVID, social distancing and whatever,” said Mayor Mike Horn in the last town council meeting. “That’s why we wanted to do the ribbon-cutting with a relatively short ceremony and then we have the extended period of time for all of our other residents that we can actually spend some time with and talk about the community center and how proud we are of it.”

The center is named after Lewisville resident Mary Alice Warren, who donated the 15-acre site on which the 12,000-square-foot center is being built. The facility is located on Lewisville-Clemmons Road next to Jack Warren Park, a 15-acre multi-use park also donated to the town by Mary Alice Warren.

The town gave her a private tour in advance of the official opening.

“You could tell she was very moved by this and had a full tour or all the meeting rooms, all the patios, porches and all the things,” Horn said. “We did the reveal for her and Jack’s plaque above the fireplace.

“The next day, I got three phone calls from Mary Alice talking about how wonderful the community center is and how meaningful it was for her to have that moment to go through it and see it — and how her mother and dad would be so proud of what became of their farm and how it would be such a great legacy for Lewisville.”

In another item on the agenda, Town Manager Hank Perkins gave the latest update on the Gateway Project, which has been delayed from a projected construction start twice this year after receiving no construction bids.

Perkins said that the project was advertised Oct. 17 with bid openings scheduled Nov. 18 at 10 a.m. in Town Hall.

“Since it’s a re-advertisement, we’re hoping for multiple bids,” he said, “but if we have less than three interested bids, we can accept any one of them as long as we are happy and satisfied with the result.”

The Gateway Project is the road improvement from the U.S. 421 interchange on Williams Road continuing between that interchange and the roundabout at Shallowford and Williams roads.

With the acceptance of a satisfactory bid, Perkins said that the project is expected to take eight months to complete.

Included in the work will be widening the road from the roundabout at Shallowford Road along Williams Road to the roundabout on the other side of Circle K with a 10- or 11-foot planted median down the center of the road with extra wide multi-purpose lanes on both sides to handle both vehicular and bicycle traffic to share the road. There will also be curb and gutter and sidewalks on each side.

Perkins has stated that the reason in not receiving interest in the project has been the overall state of the economy and contractors being overwhelmed with work.

Also, the council received an update on the town’s new Comprehensive Plan and Parks, Recreation and Cultural Development Plan — titled Lewisville Tomorrow – from Kimley Horn, consultants for the project.

Horn said that the town is on track for the Parks & Recreation study to be wrapped up soon and for the Comprehensive Plan Review to be completed around the first of the year.