If you have lived in Clemmons for more than a few years, you have probably had some version of this conversation with a visitor: "So where's downtown?" And you have probably answered it the way most of us do, with a vague wave toward Lewisville-Clemmons Road and a mumble about the shopping centers. That answer is on borrowed time.
The village bought 12.42 acres from Novant Health for $1.9 million in August 2024, and this summer is the first stretch where you can actually watch the town-center idea move from council slides into concrete and framing. Combine that with two long-empty Stratford Road restaurant boxes filling back up, and the daily texture of living here in July looks measurably different than it did a year ago. This post is a field guide to the changes worth knowing about.
The 12-acre answer to "where's downtown?"
The Village Point Greenway property sits next to the fishing pier off Peace Haven, and it is the single most consequential piece of ground in Clemmons right now. Mayor Mike Rogers framed the intent plainly at last August's groundbreaking, saying the parcel starts "the area that was the vision of a council many years ago, which was to create a town center. Many towns have a center. We don't have one at this time."
The first building out of the ground is the Village Point Operations Center, a two-story, roughly 3,500-square-foot facility that will house Forsyth County Sheriff's deputies, village staff space, storage, and public bathrooms tied to greenway hours. Town Manager Mike Gunnell told the council in March that a ribbon-cutting was expected in the June/July timeframe, which puts it squarely in front of you as you read this.
The more interesting question is what happens on the remaining 10.92 acres, and that is where the March 9 council vote matters. The council approved MLA Group contracts for design work on two additional pieces:
- An amphitheater complex ($48,500 design fee, plus $45,900 for ADA design services)
- A farmer's market and airnasium complex ($35,000 design fee)
MLA Design Group presented the actual renderings to council on June 8. Those drawings are the first time residents can look at a picture, rather than a survey list, of what the town center could feel like. The public input survey that ran last summer had floated pickleball courts, a splash pad, swings, multipurpose sports courts, and passive green space as candidates. What made the design shortlist tells you what the council heard loudest.
The practical takeaway for anyone living within a few miles of Peace Haven: the traffic patterns, foot traffic, and weekend rhythm of the Jessie Village Drive corner are about to change on a multi-year timeline, not a rumor timeline.
Stratford Road's second act
While the village is building something new on the east side of town, the Stratford corridor is doing something almost as useful: it is refilling boxes that have been dark for a while. Two openings scheduled for spring 2026 are worth knowing by name.
| Address | Former tenant | New concept | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 828 S. Stratford Rd. | Cagney's Kitchen | Miam Breakfast House | Third Triad location; Greensboro-based breakfast and brunch |
| 3260 S. Stratford Rd. | Cimarron Steakhouse | Hawgfish Shack | Seafood and barbecue, on the edge of Clemmons |
Miam's third location matters because breakfast supply in Clemmons has been thin relative to demand. If you have tried to grab a Sunday table at Clemmons Kitchen or 2520 Tavern after a youth soccer game, you know the wait. A third Miam address, following the Lawndale Drive store in Greensboro, adds real weekend capacity rather than another dinner spot competing with the ones we already have.
Hawgfish Shack landing in the old Cimarron building is the more emotional swap. That location sat as a steakhouse for years and has been through several attempts since. A seafood-and-barbecue concept is a different bet, and it slots next to Full Moon Oyster Bar over on River Ridge Drive to give this end of town two serious seafood options for the first time in a while.
Neither opening is a chain announcement. Both are regional operators making a specific decision about Clemmons, which is a small but real signal about how the corridor is being valued right now.
Saturday morning, meanwhile
If you want a concrete way to string all of this together in one weekend, the Clemmons Farmers Market is the best on-ramp. The 2026 season opened April 25, and the market runs every Saturday from 8:30 to 11:30 AM at the Jerry Long Family YMCA at 1150 S. Peace Haven Road, tucked into the front parking lot most weeks and shifting to the field at the corner of Peace Haven and Jessie Village Drive on weekends when YMCA youth sports crowd the space.
A few vendors worth knowing by name from the 2026 roster:
- Henry's Fresh Roast for coffee
- Grover Road Farms and Wild Growth Farms on the produce side
- Sweet Em's Bakery and Nana Tee's Bubble Brittle if you have a sweet tooth
- Davis Backyard Bees for honey
- Moo Moo's Melts & More for a grilled-cheese-heavy food truck stop
The market is a producer-only operation, meaning vendors have to reside and produce within 50 miles of Clemmons, with exceptions considered case by case. That rule is why the mix stays local and why the same face is usually behind the same table week to week.
The geographic point is worth noticing. The YMCA market is roughly a mile from the Village Point Greenway property where a permanent farmer's-market/airnasium complex is now in design. The Saturday routine you build now is a preview of the one you will keep when the market has a purpose-built home.
Tanglewood is still the anchor
None of the above changes the fact that the biggest lifestyle asset in Clemmons is still the 1,100 acres of Tanglewood Park at 4061 Clemmons Road. The summer routines there are the ones you already know: the Aquatic Center's four pools open 10 AM to 8 PM for $8 a ticket, the Championship and Reynolds courses plus the Par-3, tennis, Mallard Lake for paddleboats and fishing, horseback riding on the wooded trails, and the arboretum's 26 gardens for a slow walk.
Two Tanglewood details worth a mental bookmark this summer:
- The RV campground's 2026 season runs March 1 through December 5. If you have out-of-town family who want to visit but do not want a hotel, the 44 full-hookup sites under the oaks are an underused option, and campground guests get free admission to the Festival of Lights when it opens in the fall.
- Pat's Tennis Aces brought back Junior Tennis Clinics at the park. If you have been driving your kid to Winston for lessons, that changed.
The Tanglewood constant is what makes the new stuff at Village Point plausible. A town of 20,000-something people does not usually get to build a real town center, and Clemmons is only in position to try because the county park already carries the "big outdoor amenity" job.
The through-line
Pull the four pieces together and the pattern is easy to see. The village is building civic infrastructure at Village Point. Private operators are filling formerly dark restaurant boxes on Stratford. The farmers market is a bridge between the community you can join today and the permanent home being designed for it. Tanglewood keeps doing what Tanglewood does.
The question worth asking as a resident is not "which of these is finished?" It is "which of these do I want to be part of before it is finished?" The MLA renderings will go to more council meetings this year. The public comment periods on amphitheater and airnasium design are the last real chance to shape what those buildings actually feel like once they open. If you have an opinion about whether Clemmons ends up with a genuine gathering space or a nicer parking lot with some benches, this is the summer to walk into a council meeting and say so.
If you are weighing a move within Clemmons or trying to time a sale against these changes, the practical questions are worth talking through with someone who tracks them week to week. Schedule your free consultation with Karen Pardue and we can look at what the Village Point timeline, the Stratford corridor activity, and the seasonal market dynamics mean for your specific block.
