"So you can just loop around Greensboro, and you go through all these different neighborhoods, and here you are on a nice path that you can either bike, walk, jog... and get to another neighborhood."
Jake Keys of the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce said that to WFDD in May. For most of the Downtown Greenway's 25-year history, you couldn't actually do that. You could walk the north, east and south sections, but the west side was a construction zone. On Saturday, May 16, 2026, the city cut the ribbon at Cairn's Course on Guilford Avenue, and the four-mile loop opened as one continuous route.
That makes this October and November the first full fall with a closed loop. The city's Greenway calendar for the season is built around it. Guided tours cover the full four miles, and the weekly run club starts and finishes at the same park, which sits where the newest mile begins.
The mile that turned the trail into a loop
The last piece was the Western Branch, which runs from Smith Street to Spring Garden Street, with a one-block connection northwest toward Hill Street. It took $54 million to build the whole Greenway. That's more than twice the early estimate of about $26 million.
People used the trail heavily before it was finished. Project manager Dabney Sanders, who has run the Greenway since 2007, told WFDD the unfinished trail was visited more than 150,000 times last year. Those visits came on a route with a gap in it. A complete circuit lets you set a pace, mark a distance and finish where you started.
The 2026 work did more than pave the gap. According to the Greenway's own history, the Western Branch got two neighborhood benches, two decorative crosswalks, three bike racks, a mural and a stretching station, along with several new public art pieces. The year also brought two notable commissions. Jim Gallucci was hired to create the Wonder of Water Walk, a series of 13 elements along the College Branch stream about local waterways. Brad Oldham Studios was hired for Off We Go, a sculpture honoring Sanders. It stands in the Five Points section, where the first groundbreaking happened in 2009. Ownership and operations also moved fully from Action Greensboro to the City of Greensboro this year.
Walking the Western Branch, heading south from Smith Street
The new mile runs past Historic College Hill and the edge of Westerwood. Fisher Park and Warnersville are among the other neighborhoods on the loop. Most of the landmarks here are new this year:
- Smith Street. Home Stretch marks the north end of the Western Branch.
- Guilford Avenue crossing. A Path Forged in Spring sits at the crossing.
- Cairn's Course, between Guilford Avenue and West Friendly Avenue. Thomas Sayre cast this monumental earthwork on the College Branch stream. WFDD describes it as 22 feet tall, made of seven huge earth-toned concrete bowls stacked on top of each other. The May ribbon-cutting was held here.
- Friendly Avenue underpass. John Gibbs painted the wildlife mural Creekside Current here.
- West Market Street. May-Bee and the Bot (in the Uncanny Valley) is a 28-foot stainless-steel sculpture you can interact with, installed by Pete Beeman and his crew. The Greenway map shows parking at West Market Street and a drinking fountain on the Western Branch, so this works as a mid-loop stop or a place to start.
- West McGee and Cedar. Art installations mark the College Hill crossings on the way down to Spring Garden Street.
Past Spring Garden, the loop continues to Morehead Park at Spring Garden and Edgeworth streets, then east toward Woven Works Park at Murrow Boulevard and East Lindsay Street. The Greenway's art collection now has more than 50 pieces, including Gateway of the Open Book, Meeting Place and Bridging The Gap. Other named stops along the route are the Bird, Bee & Butterfly Pollinator Garden and the Public Orchard.
LoFi Park is the start and finish line
The city's fall programming keeps coming back to one spot, LoFi Park at 500 North Eugene Street, which has community art and seating. It sits at West Smith and North Eugene streets, the same corner where the Western Branch begins. Within a few hundred feet, you can get a meal, a coffee or groceries:
- Joymongers Brewing Co., 576 North Eugene Street, 93 feet away. The park's seating faces it.
- Acropolis Restaurant, 416 North Eugene Street, about 348 feet away.
- Machete, 600C Battleground Avenue, about 364 feet away.
- Deep Roots Market, 600 North Eugene Street, about 387 feet north.
- The Sage Mule, 608 Battleground Avenue, about 440 feet away, with coffee and scratch-made pastries.
The loop's east side has its own home base. Woven Works Park, at 401 Cumberland Street, has accessible play features and a pollinator garden, which is why the city's morning programs for young children meet there.
The fall calendar, by day of the week
All of the dates below come from the city's Downtown Greenway calendar and its event listings. Details can change, so check before you go.
Thursdays, 6 to 7 p.m., LoFi Park. The Downtown Greenway Run & Walk Club is free and open to all ages and fitness levels. Runners usually cover the full four miles, and walkers go about two. The October sessions are Oct. 1, 8, 15, 22 and 29, and the November sessions are Nov. 5, 12, 19 and 26. Nov. 26 is Thanksgiving Day, so check that one before you head out.
Tuesdays in October, 6 to 7 p.m. Fall Into Fitness meets Oct. 6, 13, 20 and 27.
Friday, Oct. 2, Woven Works Park. First Friday Storytime runs from 10 to 10:30 a.m. It's free and meant for young children. Stroller Rollers follows from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m., a walk or roll of one to two miles round trip.
Saturday, Oct. 17, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., Woven Works Park. The Downtown Greenway Community Picnic is on the calendar, but the city lists the date as tentative.
Thursday, Oct. 22, 5:30 to 7 p.m., Weatherspoon Art Museum. The fourth and last talk in the Greenway's completion-year Speaker Series features Thomas Sayre, the sculptor behind Cairn's Course, in conversation with Dr. Emily Stamey, the Weatherspoon's Curator of Academic Programming and Head of Exhibitions. They'll discuss the value of public art and how it builds community. The talk overlaps that evening's 6 p.m. run club, so you'll have to choose one.
Saturdays, Oct. 24 and Nov. 21, 9 a.m. to noon, LoFi Park. The Downtown Greenway Walking Tours are three-hour guided walks around the full four-mile loop. They start and end at LoFi Park. Joymongers and Acropolis are steps away when the tour ends at noon.
If your weekends usually take you north to the Atlantic & Yadkin Greenway, the northern trestle bridge between Strawberry Road and Bur-Mil Park is still closed. The city expects upgrade construction to begin this fall and finish in fall 2027. The Weaver Bridge south of Bur-Mil Park is still open.
What the city wants built along the loop
The city is also treating the finished loop as a place to build. On Sept. 15, City Council approved a voluntary rezoning program for property owners along and near the Downtown Greenway. Under the program, the city will start the process of rezoning participating parcels to Central Business, or CB, which allows offices, retail, service businesses and denser housing. Nothing changes without the owner's written consent, and every case still goes through normal public notice and hearings. The first hearings could come as early as October. By the time the loop was finished, city officials and Action Greensboro were crediting it with helping spur more than $612 million in completed and planned development along the corridor.
For anyone on the Thursday run, the buildings at the edge of the trail may look different by next fall. For now, the route is four miles out from LoFi Park and four miles back to it, with Cairn's Course halfway down the newest stretch. For more on the city outside the loop, see our Greensboro neighborhood guide and our earlier look at the July weekend Greensboro locals stopped driving out of town for.
If you live near the Greenway and want to know how the finished loop and the new rezoning program fit into your home's value, the team at Carolina Home Partners follows this corridor block by block. Get Your Free Home Valuation and we'll walk you through what's changing near you.
