Auburn Community Park

If you have a child that was in KCE’s football or cheerleading programs then you have probably spent countless hours at the Auburn Community Park. This great park started construction in 2011 and has 30 acres of green space for multiple football/soccer games.

There are quite a few permanent structures in Auburn Community Park including a very nice playground, a large shelter with firepit, and a concessions/storage building that is in heavy use during youth football season.

The playground is quite big and includes a number of items for kids both young and old. One really nice feature is that the playground is ADA accessible thanks to a ramp that allows easy access to the woodchip area. There are also plenty of picnic tables for adults to sit at while the kids play.

The pavilion is huge with over a dozen picnic tables under cover. Next to it is a nice firepit with hard-scaping and a couple benches for those cool nights when you want a fire to keep you warm or just to roast marshmallows over. The pavilion can be reserved through the Auburn Township website by downloading and completing a form.

There are two paths that are great for walks at the Auburn Community Park. The longer trail is approximately 0.7 miles and runs around the perimeter of the grass area.

The newer path is a 0.63 mile trail that winds through the forest on the north side of the park. This trail was build by Girl Scout Troop #11 around 2013 after a proposal to the Township in 2012. While the trail does not appear on sites like AllTrails (yet) it is a pleasant walk through a pretty typical Geauga County forest - mostly maples and elms with a handful of young oaks and even a few stands of cherry trees.

There are a couple bridges that provide a way over the small creeks as well as benches at the start and middle of the trail to rest. The path itself is mostly dirt and crushed gravel and is in surprisingly good shape with minimal rutting.

The park is located at 17484 Munn Road, between E Washington Road and Stafford. If you are approaching the park from the south it is really easy to find thanks to the large signs at the entrance. However, if you are approaching it from the north, you will likely drive right by it unless you are using a GPS navigation system. This is because there is a row of untamed white pine trees that blocks the sign from view when you are approaching it by driving southbound on Munn. Take a look at the image below - the red truck it turning into the park! I personally have driven past the entrance dozens of times when taking my kid to practice here.

Thanks to the recently expanded parking lot it is now generally trivial to find a parking space and not have to park along the road to the park. It still gets extremely crowded during youth practice nights, but you can typically find a space.

The Auburn Township website has a good writeup on the history of the park. The trustees wanted a park to enable the local youth to practice and play in Auburn Township instead of always having to use the fields in Bainbridge Township. In 2005 the Township joined the Western Reserve Land Conservancy and together were able to purchase the 68 acre farm from the Cathan family. Construction on the site didn’t start until 2011 when the driveway was put in. Working with KCE, three football fields were designed and seeded and the concession stand built as part of Phase 1. Due to the nature of converting farm field to a grass surface, the fields were not ready for use until 2015. Phase 2 added the walking trails and the playground was built as part of Phase 3.

Work on improving the park continues to this day. Currently there is a single port-a-potty serving the entire park. As you can imagine it gets very heavily used during youth practices. To remedy the situation work on a permanent restroom is well into the design phase. According to minutes from the June 2nd, 2025 trustees meeting, the septic permit for the park is ready and requests for excavation work have gone out to multiple local companies. In addition there are smaller projects at the park including a pollinator garden by Gril Scout Troop 70822 and some new trees and bat boxes as part of a Scouting America Eagle Project.