Symphony Park SouthPark Renovation: Where to Walk During Closure

Symphony Park hosts roughly 80 events a year on about 7.4 acres at 4400 Sharon Road. Once its renovation is finished, SouthPark Community Partners expects that number to reach about 250, according to Axios Charlotte. Getting there requires closing the park for about a year, with construction expected to start this fall and the park expected to reopen next fall.

That year shows how much of SouthPark's shared outdoor time runs through a single lawn behind a mall. The neighborhood's long-range plan says Symphony Park shouldn't carry that much alone. The plan is a "park once" district linked by The Loop, a roughly three-mile urban trail. During the closure, the parts of that network that already exist are the outdoor options you can actually use, and they don't yet connect into a continuous route.

What One Lawn Carried in 2026

The 2026 schedule Simon published for Symphony Park shows how much the park took on in a single season.

The list also includes several race and walk mornings: Run Jen Run, Around the Crown Run, Racefest and the Parkinson's Move It Walk. Taken together, the schedule covers festivals, concerts, races, a professional golf week and weeknight happy hours on the same grass.

The Charlotte Symphony called this June's Summer Pops run the "final major event" before the planned renovation. Axios Charlotte reported in March that SouthPark After 5 returned this spring and will pause in 2027 while the park is rebuilt. That story didn't name a new venue for the series.

The Timeline Moved Once Already

The original plan was to start construction right after the Fourth of July. In June, Adam Rhew, president and CEO of SouthPark Community Partners, told the Charlotte Business Journal the start would come "a couple of months later than we had hoped." That article, syndicated by WSOC, said the park was expected to close in September and construction would begin in the fall.

In July, Axios Charlotte explained the delay. Permits were filed in June, and the need for more soil testing pushed the start into fall. Rhew told the outlet the team was "ready to really hit the gas." The reopening target is the same: next fall, about a year after work begins.

Thanksgiving Morning Still Starts at the Mall

The last entry on Simon's 2026 park calendar is the Turkey Trot on Thursday, November 26. For anyone who runs it every year, the organizer's listing has the important detail. The Charlotte Turkey Trot, run by Start 2 Finish, starts and finishes at SouthPark Mall.

The 2026 race has four events:

• CPI Security 8K
• CPI Security 5K run or walk
• Harris Teeter 1-mile fun run
• A 50-yard Tot Trot for the smallest runners

Registration is open through the race website. Because the race is based at the mall, its start and finish don't depend on the lawn next door, which is scheduled to be under construction by then.

What the Closure Pays For

Several of the things the renovation adds are things the park has never had. The plan QCity Metro described includes two restaurants, micro-retail, permanent public restrooms, bandshell improvements and trail connections. Rodgers Builders is the general contractor. LandDesign is the landscape architect and civil engineer, Neighboring Concepts designed the micro-retail and restrooms, and Simon is designing and building the restaurants and their outdoor spaces, Axios Charlotte reported in December.

The money comes from three places, according to Axios:

Rhew told the outlet the total cost is still to be determined and is expected to exceed the $21 million first projected.

The event count says the most about what changes. Rhew described a future schedule that runs from sunrise yoga for maybe a dozen people up to events with thousands of attendees. At 250 events a year, the lawn would average an event on roughly two of every three days, compared with about one day in five at today's count of around 80.

The Loop Exists in Pieces

The renovation also builds a 500-foot section of The Loop inside Symphony Park. Elsewhere in the neighborhood, SouthPark Community Partners lists three constructed Loop segments:

1. About 400 feet on Roxborough Parkway Drive, connected to The Colony
2. 800 feet on Carnegie Boulevard, next to Apex SouthPark
3. 642 feet on Piedmont Row Drive, next to The Barclay and Modera Liberty Row

Together those three segments total about 1,842 feet. A three-mile trail is about 15,840 feet, so the pieces on that list cover roughly 12 percent of the route, and they don't yet connect. The City of Charlotte's Cameron Valley project page uses a broader count and says two miles of The Loop have already been completed. Both sources agree on what comes next: SouthPark Community Partners describes the first contiguous mile as still ahead, with two more miles to follow after it. Branded crosswalks at Sharon and Carnegie, Sharon and Fairview, and Carnegie and Barclay Downs mark where future connections will go.

The next segment is moving through the city's process. The City of Charlotte's Cameron Valley project is a 0.2-mile stretch on the west side of Cameron Valley Parkway, between Carnegie Boulevard and Fairview Road. As of the city's July 23, 2026 update, design was 90 percent complete, right-of-way acquisition had started and curb ramps were in. Axios put the price of that section at about $3.625 million. SouthPark Community Partners says the near-term goal is a first contiguous mile running from Cameron Valley Parkway through Rexford Road and Coca-Cola Plaza, linking the Apex SouthPark and Colony segments. Rhew told Axios the aim is to assemble mile-long sections "rather than a few hundred feet here and there."

So during the closure year, a Loop walk means one short paved segment at a time, connected by sidewalks and those marked crosswalks.

The Longer Walk Runs South

South of Fairview Road, a different trail is already open. Phase 1 of the Backlot Trail opened in October 2023, running from the Cross Charlotte Trail to Park South Drive with funding from the city's CNIP program. SouthPark Community Partners calls it a "tranquil, nature-focused alternative" to the Loop. Its planned route connects neighborhoods to Park Road Park, the Park Road Tennis Center, Fairmeadows Swim and Racquet Club, Phillips Place, Sharon Corners, Sharon Square and Charlotte Country Day School. The long-term plan extends it to the future McMullen Creek Greenway, joining two greenways into one regional network.

The Backlot and the Loop are designed for different jobs. The Backlot is the quieter, nature-focused route tied into the regional greenway network, and the Loop is meant to connect SouthPark's shops, restaurants, hotels and parks. While Symphony Park is closed, the Backlot's open first phase and its link to the Cross Charlotte Trail give SouthPark a trail walk that doesn't depend on stringing together short segments.

What Comes Back Next Fall

When Symphony Park reopens, expected next fall, the plans call for permanent restrooms, two restaurants, micro-retail and bandshell improvements, along with a 500-foot Loop section running through the park. SouthPark After 5 is scheduled to sit out the 2027 season, so its return depends on the reopening date. On Thanksgiving 2026, the Turkey Trot's 8K, 5K, mile and Tot Trot start and finish at SouthPark Mall during the park's construction window. By Thanksgiving 2027, if the schedule holds, the race will start beside a park expecting about three times as many events as it hosted this year.

A year of construction next door, followed by a park expecting about three times as many events, is a real change on your side of Sharon Road. If you're curious how that might show up in your home's value, The Kim Hamrick Team can walk you through it. Start by getting your instant home valuation.