Academy Pavilion & Plaza

Academy Pavilion and Plaza sits inside Downtown Cary Park, directly north of Frantz Square. The pavilion holds Market 317, restrooms and an event space, and the plaza spreads out beside it under shade oaks with a view over the park.

People eat lunch here, hold meetings and let children run through the sprayground in the warm months. The park around it was a long time coming. Cary’s Town Council first proposed a park for the town center in 2001, and construction did not begin until 2021.

What to know

• Frantz Square and the Academy Street improvements finished in 2017 as phase one.
• The Town Council set the park at seven acres in 2014.
• OJB Landscape Architecture was selected in 2018 to update the master plan.
• A bond vote passed in 2019 and schematic design drawings began.
• Ben Savage, an early owner of the land, lived in Cary until 1928.