March 2022 WGB Update
First envisioned in 2015, the Woodfin Greenway & Blueway park system provides users an abundance of opportunities to get outside, experience the French Broad River, and connect with the community. Construction on the ambitious project is underway now, with the Silver-Line Park component now complete.
Silver-Line Park is located at 1054 Riverside, just north of Silver-Line Plastics. The contours of Silver-Line Park draw visitors past natural, and over constructed, wetlands to the river’s edge. Features of the park include a river-adjacent picnic pavilion and play structures, complete with log and boulder scrambles, and a custom-built pirate ship – also scramble-able. Silver-Line Park offers an impressive trailer accessible boat ramp on the French Broad River for all kinds of watercraft. Significantly improved stormwater conveyance and substantial riverbank stabilization underscore the community’s commitment to environmental stewardship.
Silver-Line Park ribbon-cutting and grand opening are planned in April 2022.
A recently acquired 4-acre tract of land under the Craggy Bridge marks the southern end of an expanded Riverside Park, where guests may wander along woodland paths to picnic or to improve their fitness. A grand pavilion offers prime viewing of paddlers navigating the French Broad River and the Wave.
Some have called the Wave the jewel in the crown of the Woodfin Greenway & Blueway. This rock ledge structure, built using natural materials, will rest on the riverbed adjacent to Riverside Park. The Wave is expected to draw locals and visitors from afar for recreational or instructional paddling, and for world-class competition. Through-boaters and wildlife may navigate a Wave bypass to calmer downstream waters.
Riverside Park and the Wave are proceeding through final design and permitting phases with concurrent construction slated to begin in 2023.
Connecting Silver-Line and Riverside Parks and the Wave is the French Broad River Greenway. Together with its companion Beaverdam Creek Greenway, 5 miles of paved pathways will extend south to Broadway Street, parallel the river, and traverse northwest to the base of Reynolds Village at Weaverville Highway. Buncombe County Recreation Services is the lead partner agency for development of greenways.
All segments of the greenway are currently in design phase with construction beginning as soon as 2024.
The estimated cost of Woodfin’s Greenway & Blueway is approximately $22.3 million. Of this amount, the Town and Buncombe County have secured $16.6 million. Funders of the project include the Federal Highway Administration (via NC Department of Transportation), Buncombe County Tourism Development Authority, Buncombe County government, the NC Departments of Environmental Quality and Parks & Recreation, the Silver family, and the Town of Woodfin, whose voters overwhelmingly approved in 2016 a referendum for $4.5 million in general obligation bonds.For more information on supporting WGB please contact lisa@riverlink.org.