Frank Johnson Rec Center expands its reach behind new pavillions, pool, playgrounds

At the recreation center that would one day bear his name, Frank Johnson was a force of nature.

Known by locals as the “Mayor of Unionville,” Johnson hosted monthly meetings at the center, recruiting speakers to educate residents and encouraging children to visit the facility to play and exercise. It was part of his lifelong commitment to improving the lives of Unionville residents, a historic Black neighborhood deeply damaged by decades of redlining.

Now, county officials are carrying on Johnson’s legacy, enlarging the recreation center making it more accessible with a round of improvements, including pickleball and tennis courts, a baseball field, a pool and renovated pumphouse, a playground and two pavilions.

Inside the recreation center, builders will add a conference room and weight room.

“I know that my father is looking down and smiling because he always said when he was growing up he didn’t have anywhere to play,” said Cheryl Johnson Knight, Frank Johnson’s daughter.

Mayor Lester Miller, commissioners and Macon-Bibb County Parks & Recreation staff dug their shovels into a pile of dirt Monday morning just outside the Frank Johnson Recreation Center to commemorate the beginning of the center’s renovations.

The renovations are projected to be completed in September, said Justin Spiller of Spillers Design & Construction, the company tasked with the project. County officials touted SPLOST dollars for the $2.05 million project.

Clarence Thomas has been the rec center’s supervisor since 2014. He said the new improvements are a “complete overhaul” of several facilities that were once unaddressed.

Melvin Flowers, a service worker at the recreation center and longtime Unionville resident, said he remembered when the site was just a bunch of dirt roads.

“Our recreation centers back in the day weren’t that good,” he said. “Now we’ve got some of the best rec centers in Macon that you’d ever want to see.”

Staff at Frank Johnson consider it to be a “recreation destination” — Thomas said the renovations ought to bring in people from outside Unionville.

Johnson co-founded the Unionville Improvement Association, a community forum for residents to better themselves and receive help if they needed it, and built the Unionville Recreation Center — before it became named after him.

Johnson Knight said her father would help people build things. As a steward at nearby Bethel CME Church, he brought many people into the congregation.

“He was a foot soldier,” she said. “He walked everywhere in Unionville and made himself familiar with the people in Unionville. After a while he got a bike and would ride everywhere.”