The Creek Walk From Weaver Park to Catawba Street Runs on Four Different Clocks

Two short city greenways run from Weaver Park on Merrimon Avenue to the Reed Creek Greenway's crossing at Catawba Street, and together they make one of the more useful walks in North Asheville. Glenn's Creek Greenway is about 0.75 mile and Reed Creek Greenway about 0.86 mile. The sculpture sits partway down Reed Creek, so the walk to it is shorter than the 1.6 miles of the two greenways together. This fall, each stop on it is working to a different deadline. One part of Weaver Park is due in December. A new sculpture took three years to finish. The botanical garden's lease now runs to 2072. If you walk it in early November, you'll pass all of them in about an hour.

The route, in order:

1. Weaver Park, 200 Murdock Ave., where Glenn's Creek Greenway starts and crosses the park's pedestrian bridge.
2. Glenn's Creek Greenway west through the UNC Asheville campus, partly on paths and partly on the road.
3. Asheville Botanical Garden, 151 W.T. Weaver Blvd., the last driveway on the right before Broadway.
4. The crosswalk at Broadway, where Glenn's Creek meets Reed Creek.
5. Reed Creek Greenway south toward Montford, to the new sound sculpture at Catawba Street.

Weaver Park Is Working Toward Opening Day

The park at the start of the walk has the nearest deadline. Weaver Park has been updated in phases since 2016. The work so far includes rebuilt courts lined for both tennis and pickleball, a resurfaced basketball court with new goals, new ballfield lighting, dugouts, a batting cage and a bullpen. The Glenn's Creek Greenway was also rerouted over a new pedestrian bridge that connects the two halves of the park.

The newest round, an $800,000 renovation, has not been simple. At an October 22 City Council briefing, council members asked why repairs were still going on months after the project was called substantially complete, according to 828newsNOW's report on the briefing. Councilman Bo Hess pointed out that North Asheville Little League's spring season is coming up and told the outlet, "We have to get Weaver Park right. This is a priority."

The city's Weaver Park project page, last updated October 28, 2026, shows where things stand:

• Site drainage work and new sod are finished.
• Bids for field drainage and surface improvements close on November 10.
• The playground was closed October 29 and 30 so crews could replace the play mulch before forecast rain.
• A new entry piece for the playground, meant to make it easier for more children to get in, is on order and expected in early 2027.
• Staff are reviewing a quote for another piece to improve access between the play pods.
• The city says field repairs are on track to be done before next year's baseball season starts.

Mayor Esther Manheimer said at the briefing that the ballfield repairs should be done by the end of December. City staff said bigger playground additions would likely take longer than spring 2027, because state and city purchasing rules apply and commercial-grade play equipment takes time to arrive. City Attorney Brad Branham said donated equipment is possible as long as it meets safety standards. Council members also talked about a more formal Friends of the Parks program for neighborhood groups that want to help raise money or bring expertise. That briefing was for discussion only, and no decisions were made.

So the first stop on the walk is a project still in progress, with dates that run into early 2027. Weaver Park's deadlines are counted in weeks and seasons. The next stop has just been settled for decades.

The Garden Down the Hill Now Has a Lease to 2072

From the park, Glenn's Creek Greenway heads west toward Broadway. Parts of it run on streets, and parts are off-road paths through Weaver Park and the UNC Asheville campus. Near the end of that stretch, at the university's W.T. Weaver Boulevard entrance, is Asheville Botanical Garden.

In September, UNC Asheville announced a new 50-year ground lease with the garden. The old lease, signed in 2022, would have run out in 2032. The new one runs to 2072. The university's Board of Trustees approved it on August 19, and the UNC Board of Governors approved it on September 17.

That matters for the walk because the garden is an independent nonprofit, and it pays for its own trails, bridges and buildings. According to UNC Asheville, the longer lease helps the garden build long-term donor support and compete for grants. Matthew B. Sprouse, president of the garden's board, said in the university's announcement that the agreement "gives us the predictability we need to make decisions that will benefit the Garden and the community for generations to come."

The garden's history goes back further than its lease now runs ahead. In 1960, a small group of plant lovers started rescuing native wildflowers threatened by postwar building and began clearing an overgrown tract owned by Asheville-Biltmore College, the school that became UNC Asheville. The partnership became official in 1965. Executive director Kaita Collier told UNC Asheville, "We have more than 850 native plant species here, including rare or endangered plants such as Virginia meadowsweet, Ruth's golden aster and Virginia round-leaf birch." The university says the garden gets more than 60,000 visitors a year.

For a weekday detour, the grounds are free and open daily from sunrise to sunset. The visitor center and restrooms are open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The garden's loop trail is about half a mile, and maps are at the visitor center. The gift shop focuses on nature-themed goods, much of it from local artisans. There's a small piece of storm history here too. In December 2024, UNC Asheville's student paper, The Blue Banner, reported that a tree that fell in Sycamore Meadow during Helene left a root ball about 20 feet across and its trunk in the stream, and that staff planned to leave the root ball and part of the trunk where they were.

Across Broadway, a Sculpture Neighbors Helped Make

Glenn's Creek Greenway meets Reed Creek Greenway at a crosswalk across Broadway. The city calls Reed Creek one of the oldest greenways in its network. It runs 0.86 mile along the creek from W.T. Weaver Boulevard to Elizabeth Street in Montford.

The newest thing on the whole walk is where the greenway crosses Catawba Street. On Tuesday, October 20, the city cut the ribbon on a playable sound sculpture there, meant to work as both a landmark and a musical instrument. Artists Nick Geurts and Alex Irvine designed and built it after the city chose them through a competitive call for artists.

This piece has been a long time coming, and residents helped make it. The idea came from public feedback asking for a sculpture people could play. The ceramic tiles on it were made by hand by Asheville residents at community tile-making workshops in 2023 and 2025, hosted by Odyssey Clayworks. The money came from the city's One Percent for Public Art Policy, through construction of the nearby Broadway Public Safety Station. Local musician JoEL Karabo Elliot played it at the ribbon cutting, and the city's recap of the opening includes a photo gallery and video. The city also invited anyone who made a tile to come find where theirs ended up.

Weaver Park's work is measured in weeks and the garden's lease in decades. The sculpture took three years from the first tile workshop to the ribbon cutting, and now it's done and open to anyone walking by.

The Clock Still Running Past the Sculpture

The last deadline on this walk is for a stretch that doesn't exist yet. The full Reed Creek corridor is planned to run 2.75 miles, from Riverside Drive in the north to the pedestrian bridge over I-240 at Clingman Avenue. There are gaps on both ends of the section you can walk today. Asheville voters approved a 2024 bond that pays to design and build a northern extension. That route would start at the Broadway and W.T. Weaver Boulevard intersection and end at the I-26 Exit 25 off-ramp. The project is in design now, and the city estimates construction will start in late 2027. A southern extension will come later, as funding allows.

Here's every deadline on the walk in one place:

Parking, and One Saturday Add-On

The city lists parking at Weaver Park at 200 Murdock Ave., at the Weaver Park tennis courts at 430 Merrimon Ave., and at the botanical garden. There's also street parking along W.T. Weaver Boulevard. Parking at the garden is free. If you'd rather start at the sculpture end, there's street parking on Catawba, Cauble and Ocala streets and on Magnolia Avenue. Parking at one end and walking out and back covers the whole route twice.

If you want more time outdoors, Blue Ridge Audubon is leading a free, beginner-friendly bird outing at Beaver Lake Bird Sanctuary on Saturday, November 7, from 9 to 11 a.m. at 1056 Merrimon Ave. The listing shows the next one on Saturday, December 5, at 9 a.m. It's a short drive up Merrimon from Weaver Park, so you can bird in the morning and walk the creek after lunch.

Leah Miller spent years in tile showrooms and tile consulting, so the handmade tiles at Catawba Street are a detail our family notices. If you live along this corridor and want to talk about your own home and how these projects fit around it, The Mike Miller Team would be glad to meet you at the trailhead or over coffee and talk it through.