WOODFIN - If the party thrown one recent warm afternoon on the banks of the French Broad River is any indication of this small Buncombe County town's pride and love for its river, the whitewater wave bubbling on the horizon will be a smash hit.

The town has been in the planning and fundraising mode for the Woodfin Greenway and Blueway Project for the past nine years but decided to throw an unveiling "Catch the Wave" party and fundraiser beside the French Broad River Academy.

Nearly 500 people turned out to meet the project designers, peruse project renderings, drink beer and win raffle goodies like kayaks and bikes. They opened their wallets to the tune of $20,000 and learned construction will start in the next few months.

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“It’s really surprised us since we first started this project how much people are really interested in it,” said town Mayor Jerry Vehaun.

“It’s going to change the riverfront coming down Riverside Drive through Woodfin. We can already see real estate that has changed hands, people are upgrading older homes, they’re looking to buy property for commercial use. Once we get the wave and it all fits together, we’ll have a lot of interest, and particularly kayakers utilizing the river on a year-round basis.”

The Greenway and Blueway Project will include 5 miles of new greenway connecting Asheville north to Woodfin, the 5-acre, waterfront Silver-Line Park, expansion of Riverside Park, new access sites for paddling, and the hotly anticipated Whitewater Wave that Vehaun mentioned – an engineered rock ledge in the French Broad River that will provide “surfable” water, and a bit more excitement for canoeists, kayakers and playboaters in the otherwise gently flowing water.

The project got a major jolt from a $4.5 million general obligation bond that Woodfin voters approved last fall, Vehaun said.

Also last year, the town received a $4.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation for the greenway portion project, and $2.25 million from the Buncombe County Tourism Development Authority. In June, Buncombe County approved $1.1 million for the project, and $245,000 more has come in from other private grants and contributions, bringing total raised so far to $12.7 million.

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When completed, the Greenway and Blueway project will cost an estimated $18.1 million, so the big push is on to raise the remaining $5.4 million, under the auspices of the nonprofit Friends of the Woodfin Greenway and Blueway.

The river magic was evident at the Catch the Wave event as Connect Buncombe, a greenway advocacy group, presented the Woodfin Friends with a check for $5,000 for more community outreach, and then a few days later, another check for $5,000 appeared from a donor on the desk of Marc Hunt.

A former Asheville City Council member, Hunt is an avid paddler and one of the enthusiastic volunteers in the Woodfin Friends group.

“We put a lot of early effort into raising money, mostly from public grants, but we’ve been working quietly,” Hunt said. “This was our first big public event. It was the right time, and the enthusiasm out there in the community really showed through.”

The town, Asheville Greenworks, Buncombe County Recreation Services, Connect Buncombe, French Broad River Academy, French Broad Riverkeeper at MountainTrue, and Riverlink cohosted Catch the Wave, which was sponsored by dozens of local businesses and individuals.

When can we expect the digging to begin?

Jason Young, who has been Woodfin Town Manager since 2002, said the project will take place in several phases, and furthers the broader visions of more than 100 miles of greenway in Buncombe County Recreation Service’s Master Greenway Plan, and the revitalization of the Asheville riverfront in the Wilma Dykeman Riverway Plan, connecting sites along the Swannanoa and French Broad rivers. It will also eventually connect to the city of Asheville’s RADTIP – River Arts Transportation Improvement Project.

Five miles of greenway – a paved or manicured pedestrian and bicycle path - will run along the French Broad River from the intersection of Riverside Drive and Broadway, for 3.5 miles to Metropolitan Sewerage District at Elk Mountain Road.

It will then head east along Beaverdam Creek for 1.5 miles to Weaverville Road/Merrimon Avenue near Reynolds Village.

The first shovels of dirt to fly will be this spring to create Silver-Line Park on a nearly 5-acre riverfront parcel donated by Silver-Line Plastics, Young said.

It will be a multiuse playground with a boat ramp, river access, walking trails, a stop for the Craggy Mountain Train Line – which is already up and running with short sightseeing tours - and possibly a museum centered on railroad history in the Doggie Day Care building, which also has the potential for concessions, restrooms and bicycle and kayak rentals, he said.

The first section of the greenway, from Silver-Line Park to MSD, should start in the second half of 2019, and the final piece of the playground – the Wave – will get underway in early 2021. It will be built by Scott Shipley, a former competitive Olympic kayaker who owns S2o Design and Engineering in Colorado and has built similar whitewater parks around the world.

“We’re taking something that people now have to drive out of town to access, and we’re bringing it into town,” Shipley said.

This should be the showstopper, Young said, and a reason for people to stop in Woodfin. There are only about 40 such artificial whitewater waves in the world. He said other cities with waves, such as Boise, Idaho, see international traffic from kayakers. The Woodfin Whitewater Wave is being modeled after one Shipley designed in New Zealand.

Diversifying an economic base

“We see it as here’s a way to open up the French Broad for more recreation,” Young said.

He said the town of 7,000 residents has always had a manufacturing base, with businesses such as Mills Manufacturing, which makes parachutes for the U.S. Army, Silver Line Plastics, Palmer Wahl, the oldest thermometer manufacturer in the country, and AvL Technologies, which produces satellite communications antennas and positioners.

“We want to keep our manufacturing base, but we understand there’s a need to be diverse,” Young said. “We want a reason for people to come out and spend a day. We want to turn the French Broad River into more of a recreation asset.”

Young said he can already feel the tourism-based ‘wave’ catching on. Blue Mountain Pizza will soon open a brewery on Riverside, joining the town’s first brewery, Zillicoa. Home values are on the rise, and restaurants and hotels are scouting out real estate.

“Woodfin kind of disappears when people are driving down the road because they don’t know where they are,” Young said. “This is something that will be hard to ignore. This is certainly the largest singular project for the town since Reynolds Village was started in 2006.”

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Hunt said the Friends of the Woodfin Greenway and Blueway aim to raise $155,000 by the end of the year to accelerate the Silver-Line Park, Riverside Park expansion and Whitewater Wave projects.

Avid runners Uta Brandstatter and her wife, Barbara Collette, have lived in Woodfin since 2004. They came out to catch the excitement at Catch the Wave.

“Now we’re driving to places to run or walk the dog. I’m super excited soon we’ll be able to run from our house to Hominy Creek and back,” Brandstatter said.

“I think this will be an economic boon for the whole community like the Swamp Rabbit Trail (in Greenville, South Carolina) or the Virginia Creeper Trail (in Abingdon, Virginia.)”

“When the Woodfin Greenway is completed, we’ll have an 11-mile continuous greenway from Woodfin to Hominy Creek,” Sweetser said.

“Greenways bring recreation and health benefits to local residents and opportunities for economic development. What follows greenways is usually housing, small retail, restaurants and larger business. As we already know, that’s why New Belgium relocated where they did (the River Arts District), because of the greenways. It’s very impressive that Woodfin is pulling this off.”

Learn more

For more on the Woodfin Greenway and Blueway or to donate, visit http://woodfingreenwayandblueway.org/.