Gainesville renames Forest Park as Abby Wambach Park (2024)

The Gainesville City Commission voted last week to rename the city’s recently renovated “premier soccer park” at 4501 SW 20 Ave. as Abby Wambach Park.

Previously known as Forest Park, the new name and signage pay homage to former UF soccer standout and retired professional soccer player Abby Wambach.

Wambach led the Gator’s women’s soccer team to their first national championship in 1998 before winning two Olympic gold medals, a 2012 FIFA World Player of the Year award and a 2015 FIFA World Cup title.

With 184 goals, Wambach is the highest all-time scorer in USA soccer history for men or women. In 2019, she was inducted into the National Soccer Hall of Fame.

“[Abby] is perhaps the best soccer player the United States has ever known,” Gainesville Commissioner Casey Willits said. “She’s got gold medals, World Cups, leadership on her teams and leadership in her community nationwide. I want people to learn that, and I want them to be proud of the Gators and proud of Gainesville. And then also I want people to be really proud of our park system.”

The park’s name change is one of the final pieces completing a multi-year renovation puzzle of Forest Park. Willits prioritized renovating Gainesville’s parks after noticing people in his district repeatedly did not know where their closest park was and struggled to identify Forest Park.

After Tracey Sowich of the Gainesville Regional Soccer League brought forward the idea of changing the park’s name almost a year ago, Willits took it to the City Commission.

One suggestion was to only rename half of the park. Forest Park is divided into two parcels of land, an active park and a nature park,and two names could keep the two sections distinct. But Willits said the large investment spent to renovate the whole park warranted an entire name change.

“I didn’t want to go small, I wanted to go big,” Willits said. “It’s going to continue to be our premier soccer park for quite a while, if we put in all that money, particularly into soccer, go big.”

After the City Commission and Wambach herself approved the name change, the citystartedrenovating Forest Park in February 2023.Itre-opened with a ribbon-cutting ceremony in September, unveiling two new dog parks, sand volleyball, basketball and pickleball courts, as well as new raised soccer fields with lighting, shade structures, benches and turf engineered for more efficient drainage.

Anticipating that there would be a name change before it was officially approved, the $37,640 price tagfor new park signage was already factored into the $3.6 million renovation funded by the Wild Spaces Public Places surtax.

A $200,000 matching grant from the Florida Recreation Development Assistance Program also supplied the project.

“Renaming Abby Wambach Park, I’m very glad the whole community has come together with this,” Willits said. “We really got the voters, Gainesville, Alachua County to give us the funds to do this. Our partners who program the park through soccer, we owe a lot to them because they have kept it active.”

Willits said the Abby Wambach Park renovations will be complete after the bathrooms are upgraded. He’s also looking to start planning to build another active park in Southwest Gainesville that would offer more playground equipment.

For now, Willits said the city is focused on celebrating Abby Wambach Park’s new name, especially ahead of Team USA’s women’s Olympic gold medal soccer match against Brazil on Saturday.

“Wild Spaces and Public Places is great funds,” Willits said. “Thank the voters for giving us those tax dollars specifically for parks and for conservation areas. This is what we’re doing with it. Abby Wambach Park is just one example.”