Gateway Park moves ahead, Asheville riverfront park fully funded for 2027

Gateway Park is moving forward again on Riverside Drive after Helene interrupted the project, and RiverLink says the 1.3-acre park is now fully funded for a spring 2027 opening. The plan gives Asheville a small but visible new public space at Pearson Bridge, in a corridor that serves cyclists, runners and pedestrians along the French Broad River.

The park will be built on land donated to RiverLink by OM Sanctuary in 2011, and the nonprofit says it is meant to revive a smaller version of historic Riverside Park at the same site. RiverLink describes the design as a mix of meandering pathways, native plantings, arched gateways and a carousel-inspired pavilion, with the goal of making the space both functional and distinctive. The park is also expected to be the only public greenspace within the 2.5-mile stretch between the River Arts District and Woodfin’s Silver-Line Park.

That limited access is part of what makes the project matter beyond its footprint. RiverLink says Gateway Park will offer a natural respite along a corridor that is also slated for protected bike and pedestrian lanes on Riverside Drive and a greenway extension past White Duck Taco to Pearson Bridge. Transportation planner Tristan Winkler has called the park and the related corridor improvements “transformative” for the area, reflecting how a relatively small parcel can shape how people move through one of Asheville’s most visible riverfront corridors.

The park’s recent momentum also reflects a broader push to make the French Broad River corridor more resilient after flood damage. In 2025, Engineers Without Borders USA, RiverLink and Equinox Environmental announced a flood-resilient redesign of Gateway Park with support from RTX’s Pratt & Whitney. That version emphasized flood-resistant pavilion elements, pathways, community gathering areas, pollinator gardens, invasive-species removal and green stormwater management, tying public access directly to environmental recovery.

RiverLink says the site has a long and uneven history. Riverside Park once stood there before a fire in 1915 and the great flood of 1916 destroyed it. The land later fell into decades of blight and even landfill use in the 1950s and early 1960s. Rebuilding it now, RiverLink says, is part of a larger effort to improve the environmental and economic vitality of the French Broad River and its watershed, while giving Riverside Drive a park that finally fits the city’s riverfront future.