Alpharetta Celebrates a New Masterplan for Wills Park and A newly Designed and Renovated Equestrian Facility
The Wills Park Equestrian Center brings back many memorable moments for me. When I was a young rider showing hunter-jumpers, my parents used to drive from Buckhead to accompany me to the many horse shows held at Wills Park.
From Halloween weekend into early December, the Wills Park Equestrian Center has a show booked almost every weekend. During those same weeks, the City of Alpharetta's rebuild of the center is entering its final phase. As of the city's most recent project update, crews were still paving, building walls, and finishing arenas. The log's main landscape installation is scheduled to begin Nov. 1, the closing day of the first show.
That overlap is what makes this November worth a visit. The center will be hosting shows at full pace while visitors can still see the construction around them.
What the bond money is building on Wills Road
Alpharetta voters approved $29.5 million in park improvements in November 2021, and the city issued the 2022 Alpharetta Parks Bonds the following February. The equestrian center's share has an unusual structure. Under a memorandum of understanding, the city and the Wills Park Equestrian Foundation are 50/50 partners on the center's improvements, with the shared aim of making it a regional draw for equestrian events.
The current work started with a single contract. In July 2025, the City Council approved Georgia-based Integrated Construction and Nobility to handle work at Old Rucker Park, Union Hill Park, Wills Park, and the equestrian center, according to Appen Media. City records show a combined contract of $17,020,895.58, with $4,239,282.89 assigned to the equestrian center. Appen reported that the center would get a new entrance, upgraded RV hookups, and arena renovations.
This contract builds on earlier work. Appen previously covered a ceremony that unveiled a new competition arena as part of the first phase. The current phase focuses on two more arenas and the infrastructure around them.
Where the work stood heading into show season
The city's project log for the equestrian center includes a Sept. 1, 2026 entry reading "Construction complete." The Sept. 10 update that follows it lists plenty of active work. As of that Sept. 10 update:
- Done: footing for Arena 2 and Arena 4, site walls one through four, and the fiber-optic line relocation.
- Underway: paving the trail and parking lot, storm drainage at the new driveway entrance, waterline relocation, site walls with stone veneer, decorative handrails, grading, and landscaping.
- Next: the new entrance driveway apron, storm drains, seat walls and retaining walls, site fencing, and completion of the arenas.
Some planting had already started by Sept. 10, and the log schedules the main landscape installation from Nov. 1, 2026 through April 30, 2027. Planting crews could be working at the center during every November show weekend, and that work is scheduled to continue through the spring show season.
The stone-faced walls, the new driveway, and the paved trail are the parts visitors will notice first, because they change how people arrive at the center. Beneath the arenas, the footing is the work that matters most to riders, and the city lists that footing as finished.
Six weekends on the calendar
The shows below come from the Georgia Hunter Jumper Association's 2026 show calendar, dated Oct. 2, the Rolling Hills Saddle Club schedule, and the tentative venue calendar posted at willspark.com. Where two sources disagree, the list notes it.
- Rolling Hills Saddle Club, Oct. 31 to Nov. 1. The club's 2026 schedule lists this Wills Park show with an 8 a.m. start, at 11925 Wills Road.
- Elite Show Jumping Finals, Nov. 6 to 8. GHJA's October calendar lists these dates. The venue calendar shows Elite Show Jumping running Nov. 5 to 8.
- GHJA Grand Finale & Finals, Nov. 12 to 15. This is the association's season-ending championship. More on it below.
- Elite in the Fall, Nov. 19 to 22. GHJA lists this as the last of three straight hunter-jumper weekends.
- IEA, Nov. 28 to 29. The venue calendar lists this Thanksgiving weekend event without naming an organizer.
- Cheryl & Co., Dec. 3 to 6. This is the last booking currently on the venue calendar.
The venue calendar is labeled tentative, so check with each show's organizer before planning a weekend around one.
The finals weekend, and the part worth watching
Of the six weekends, Nov. 12 to 15 gives a casual visitor the most to watch. The 2026 GHJA Finals prize list includes hunter, jumper, and equitation divisions, along with two special classes.
The Equitation Invitational is by invitation only. It is open to the two riders in each equitation age division with the most points on Saturday, Nov. 14. Judges score their riding at the walk, trot, and canter and may ask for additional testing on the flat.
The Charity Jumper Challenge is easier to follow without knowing the sport. Teams of three ride three consecutive courses of seven fences each. The first set is at 0.80 meters, the second at 0.90 meters, and the third at 1.00 meters, and all 21 fences are judged as one course against the clock. Each knockdown adds two seconds. Each team may include no more than one professional. The entry fee is $300 per team. Half of the money raised goes to GHJA, and the other half goes to the winning team's chosen charity.
Windsor Stables sponsors the challenge, and Jennifer L. Buck sponsors the Equitation Invitational in memory of Teresa Watterson. GHJA also holds an annual written horsemanship test during finals, funded by a USHJA Affiliate Grant.
What these arenas are being built toward
The November shows are running in an unfinished version of a larger plan. The city's master plan for the center would replace the existing barns with a total of 380 stalls, renovate three arenas, and improve drainage, stormwater management, and access. The Wills Park Equestrian Foundation places the barns and the expanded parking and RV infrastructure in later phases, Phases 3 and 4, which still depend on approvals and funding.
The work under way now covers the arenas, the entrance, and the paving. The stalls come later. Exhibitors arriving this month will compete on rebuilt arena footing and still use the existing barns.
The other half of the park is already open
The general Wills Park improvements are a separate city project funded from the same bond, and they are much further along. Their centerpiece is Wacky World, the playground that was scheduled to close Sept. 29 for the rebuild, as Appen reported. It reopened with a ribbon-cutting on Saturday, May 23, on the facility's 29th birthday. Speaking at the event, according to Appen Media's coverage of the reopening, Recreation, Parks and Cultural Services Director Morgan Rodgers described it this way:
"This is Wacky World Next Generation, because we don't ever want to give up what Wacky World was meant to be and did for the City of Alpharetta."
Rodgers told the crowd that the city replaced the playground the way it was first built, with a community build. Hundreds of volunteers worked through rain and mud. Wacky World Committee Chair Jeremy Scott called it "the best adaptive fully inclusive playground in the entire state of Georgia," and Mayor Jim Gilvin called it "more than a collection of swings, slides and zip lines." On opening day, Appen saw children using the swings, zip line, slide, spring seesaw, steel tongue drum, and an overhead climber.
Some of that project is still being finished. The city's Wills Park master plan log lists the playground, restroom, and parking segment as complete. As of the Sept. 10 update, crews were still grading and pouring the spine trail near the tennis courts and landscaping the new trails. The project's scope also covers gateway entrances, the Waggy World dog park, and stream restoration. Its landscape installation runs on the same schedule as the equestrian center's, from Nov. 1 through April 30, 2027.
On a November show weekend, a family can find the finished playground on one side of the park and arenas still being finished on the other. Both are part of the same bond program and the same contract. When the spring show season opens, the landscaping is scheduled to still be going in.
Our family has spent years at horse shows. If you would like to learn more about Wills Park, The Equestrian Facility and the surrounding Equestrian Community, I would love to connect.
Katharine McQueen, McQueen Group, Peachtree Town & Country
