If you live in The Arbors, you're part of the wider Towne Lake side of Woodstock, and you've probably caught wind of the construction noise on Trickum Road this year even if you don't drive it every day. Sometimes it's road crews. Sometimes it's a different crew entirely, working on something that looks like it should be the same project but isn't. In early June, some nearby residents heard an actual blast around noon and watched the road close for a few minutes before traffic started moving again.
Here's the part that clears up a lot of the confusion: there are two separate construction projects sharing roughly the same stretch of Trickum Road right now, run by two different agencies on two different timelines. Once you know that, the on-again, off-again closures make a lot more sense.
Two projects, one intersection
The first project belongs to Cherokee County. It's a roundabout at Trickum Road and Nocatee Trail, funded through the county's SPLOST roadway program, with an estimated cost of $2.04 million and a targeted completion of March 2026, according to the county's own SPLOST roadway document.
The second project belongs to the City of Woodstock. It's Little River Park, a 110-acre build on land the city bought back in 2017, funded by 2024 Parks GO Bonds that followed a 2023 bond referendum Woodstock voters approved by 87 percent, and expected to double the city's total greenspace once it's finished. The park's main entrance sits right at that same Trickum Road intersection, and the city has been building its own entrance road into the park alongside the county's roundabout work. That's what the blasting in June was for. WSB-TV reported that Woodstock Parks and Recreation scheduled a test blast for Trickum Road on June 5, with more blasting planned June 9 through June 12, all of it tied to clearing rock at the base of the hill so crews could finish the park's entrance road.
So when you see a closure on Trickum Road, it could be the county finishing its intersection or the city finishing its park driveway. They're adjacent, they're both real, and neither one is a delay on the other.
| County Roundabout | City Park Entrance | |
|---|---|---|
| Funded by | Cherokee County SPLOST | 2024 Parks GO Bonds |
| Built by | County road contractor | ICAN, the park's general contractor |
| What it fixes | The Trickum Road / Nocatee Trail intersection | Access road, parking, and grading into Little River Park |
| Timeline as reported | Targeted for March 2026 | Blasting for the entrance road was still happening in June 2026 |
Why the opening date keeps moving
If you remember hearing that Little River Park would open sometime in 2026, you're not misremembering. You're just catching the story at different points as it shifted.
The city's own Little River Park page originally projected construction starting in the first quarter of 2025 with completion by August 2026. The actual groundbreaking didn't happen until August 5, 2025, when Mayor Michael Caldwell and city council members turned the first shovels of dirt, already several months behind that original schedule. In the release marking that groundbreaking, the city said it planned a ribbon-cutting for fall 2026.
By June 2026, the timeline had moved again. WSB-TV's report on the Trickum Road blasting quoted the city saying it hopes to open Little River Park by spring of the following year, which puts the realistic opening closer to spring 2027 than the fall 2026 date most residents heard first.
Two things in the city's own construction logs explain the slip. Site work was flagged as weather-impacted more than once in February 2026 and again in March 2026, the kind of routine delay that adds up across a 110-acre build. The bigger factor is a decision the city made about how to bid the project in the first place. Little River Park was originally planned to go in phases, with the Trickum Road zone waiting until after the county's roundabout was finished nearby. City Manager Jeff Moon told the Tribune Ledger News the city changed course and bid the entire park as one contract instead, which is why you can see work happening in the Trickum Road zone, the Linear Corridor, and the Woodlands zone all at the same time this year rather than one section finishing before the next begins.
The upside of bidding it all at once is that nothing is sitting idle waiting for something else to finish. The tradeoff is a schedule that's harder to pin to a single date, and one that has already moved once in public reporting.
The second dog park nobody's talking about yet
Here's a detail that hasn't made it into most of the coverage. The city's own monthly construction updates show crews exporting topsoil from the Trickum Road playground site to a dog park location in the park's Woodlands zone, work that was happening in April 2026.
That means Woodstock is on track to have two dog parks on this side of town instead of one. Woofstock Park, off Dupree Road, is already open and doubles as the trailhead for both the Towne Lake Pass Trail and the Noonday Creek Trail. The new one is taking shape on the existing Woodlands Park property, the site at the far end of the Linear Corridor from the Trickum Road entrance, as part of the same renovation contract that's rebuilding the rest of the park.
If you've been driving to Woofstock for years because it's the closest fenced dog park, that may not stay true much longer.
What's already open while you wait
None of this construction touches the recreation that's already up and running elsewhere in Woodstock. Little River Park's water trail is designed to eventually connect all the way to Olde Rope Mill Park, but Rope Mill itself isn't waiting on any of this. The Taylor Randahl Memorial Mountain Bike Trails there are a stacked-loop system of three interconnected trails and ten loops, maintained by the volunteer chapter SORBA Woodstock, and they're rideable right now.
A few things worth knowing before you head over:
- The Little River corridor at Rope Mill has paved and dirt trail sections, a pedestrian bridge across the river, and views of the old rope mill's water diversion chute and a historic train trestle.
- Trails at Rope Mill are directional by day of the week, and hikers share the tread with mountain bikers, so check posted signage before you go.
- SORBA Woodstock posts trail status updates on its own site, including maintenance-related closures on individual trails like the Explorer Trail earlier this year, so it's worth a quick check before a ride if you haven't been out in a while.
- Woofstock Park's fenced, off-leash areas for large and small dogs are open daily and remain the closest option until the Woodlands zone dog park is finished.
None of that changes because a park across town is still under construction. It just means the choices on the Towne Lake side of Woodstock are about to expand rather than shift.
Keeping track without guessing
The city posts its own month-by-month construction updates for Little River Park, which is where a lot of the detail in this piece came from, boardwalk sections, trail pours measured in linear feet, bridge installations, the works. If you want to watch the actual progress rather than wait for the next news segment, that page is the most direct source, along with the city's parks bond update site.
Trickum Road is going to keep looking a little chaotic for a while longer. Now at least you know why, and what to expect when the cones finally come down for good.
Curious how projects like this affect home values or timing in the Towne Lake area, or just want a straight answer about what's happening near a specific address? Broadus Realty Group knows this side of Woodstock block by block. Reach out anytime with a question, no obligation attached.
