Asheville Receives $345,000 to Rebuild Azalea Park After Helene

More than 18 months after Hurricane Helene shredded the Swannanoa River corridor and shuttered Azalea Park, the City of Asheville has secured $345,000 in state grant funds to formally begin rebuilding a stretch of green space that generations of locals have called "Asheville's Playground." Construction will not start until 2028.

The award is one of 11 grants totaling $4,158,875 distributed to parks and recreation projects across western North Carolina through the Parks and Recreation Trust Fund's Helene Recovery Fund. The North Carolina Parks and Recreation Authority, a nine-member board appointed jointly by Governor Josh Stein, the Senate President Pro Tempore, and the Speaker of the House, approved the grants at a March 27 meeting at Lake James State Park. The funding flows from the Disaster Recovery Act of 2025 Part II, which Stein signed into law in June 2025 at the reopening celebration of Chimney Rock State Park.

Under Parks and Recreation Trust Fund rules, Asheville must match the $345,000 award dollar-for-dollar, meaning the city must commit at least an equal amount from local funds and bring the minimum project investment to $690,000. Any facilities built or renovated with those combined dollars must remain publicly accessible for at least 25 years; any land acquired must be dedicated in perpetuity for recreational use.

Parks and Recreation Director D. Tyrell McGirt has described the Azalea Park project as among the city's most complex and costly recoveries, comparing its slower pace to the faster-moving repairs at Richmond Hill Park. The storm left an estimated $25 million in total damage across Asheville's parks system, making the $345,000 grant meaningful but partial. The broader Azalea Road corridor, which hugs the Swannanoa River, also includes the John B. Lewis Soccer Complex, leased to the Asheville Buncombe Youth Soccer Association, and the Gashes Creek Bridge, which required a temporary replacement structure after Helene struck on September 27, 2024.

The design phase for Azalea Park is expected to run through 2026 and into early 2027, with contractor procurement following before construction begins in 2028. A community open house at Asheville Middle School in December 2025 gathered resident priorities around amenities, accessibility features, and environmental restoration. City officials have committed to a phased reopening, unlocking sections of the park as soon as they are safely stabilized rather than waiting for the full project to complete.

The city's primary recovery financing runs through FEMA's Public Assistance Program and a $225 million Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The PARTF award supplements those federal streams, and FEMA damage assessments combined with HUD eligibility documentation provide the Helene-related paper trail that auditors can use to confirm the money is reaching genuinely storm-damaged infrastructure.

State Parks Director Brian Strong said "PARTF has been an invaluable resource for building local parks for communities across the state, and we are proud for its legacy to include contributions to the state's Helene recovery." Governor Stein thanked the legislature for "appropriating this much-needed funding."

Azalea Park has sat locked since the flood. Whether construction breaks ground on schedule in 2028 will depend on how quickly the city finalizes design, secures matching funds, and moves through contractor procurement on a project that McGirt has already flagged as one of the most complicated in the storm-damaged parks system.