New South Hall community center opens

FLOWERY BRANCH - South Hall County’s new Mulberry Creek Community Center in Flowery Branch on J.M. Turk Road opened with a ribbon cutting, lots of visitors and more Saturday morning.

Due to weather, the surface on J.M. Turk Road was still unpaved hard clay, something that South Hall County Commissioner Bobby Banks promised to correct by the end of next week.

“They’ll start paving on Monday,” Banks said. “It’ll be done by the end of next week.”

Parks and Leisure Services Board chairman Larry Poole said the board was committed to make facilities available for exercise, that "our bodies weren’t meant to sit."

Parks and Leisure Executive Director Greg Walker said the center has space and exercise equipment for everyone. Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) dollars paid for the facility and it represents the goal of putting such facilities within easy reach all over the county.

“That’s our goal,” Walker said. “I think you can see it with the commitment to some of the community centers that are already approved for construction. We’re getting ready to roll with those sometime in January, we’re breaking ground up on Nopone Road."

Nopone Road at Cleveland Highway is the site of the North Hall Community Center, also to be built using SPLOST dollars.

Former Parks and Leisure Services Board member Harold Nichols said the Mulberry Center represented a public, private community effort.

“This is a project that was dreamed of many, many years ago,” Nichols said.

The Mulberry Center replaces the old South Hall Community Center in Oakwood, which closed last week. That land and building have been bought by Blackshear Place Baptist Church. Nichols said the church had allowed the county to use the building until the new center was finished.

Commissioners Banks and Steve Gailey cut the ribbon in one of the new gyms and then various activites began, starting with belly dancing by Hope Adams from Sugar Hill.

“It was nice to bring a little Middle Eastern culture here to Hall County,” she said. “I’ll be coming out here on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and Mondays as well for pre-school gymnastics.”

“Belly dance is strictly a dance class, dance and exercise. It’s the only form of exercise that encourages the wearing of jewelry. It's always acceptable to dress up and feel beautiful when you’re belly dancing.”