City of Charleston officials, mobility advocates and developers on Monday celebrated the official groundbreaking of the Lowcountry Lowline project, a downtown pedestrian and bicycle pathway in the works for 10 years.
“Today, we break ground on a project that’s more than a decade in the making, built for the community by the community,” said Friends of the Lowline Executive Director Courtney Olson at the ceremony under Interstate 26 that will be part of the park.
“The Lowline will continue to reconnect neighborhoods, expand access to public green space, create nature-based solutions to flooding, support active transportation and act as a new backbone of community life on the peninsula.”
Olson announced Friends of the Lowline would give $3 million toward the project, including a $2.5 million gift from the Speedwall Foundation in honor of the late Tom Bradford, founding board chair of Friends of the Lowline and a well-known cycling advocate in Charleston.
Phase One of the project began Monday with dozens of people turning out despite the bitter cold, a testament to the anticipation park. This initial phase will run 1.6 miles from Mount Pleasant Street to Line Street following an old railroad right-of-way under Interstate 26. It is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2027.
“For many years, this project has represented a shared community vision,” said Charleston Mayor William Cogswell. “It’s transforming an underused corridor into a vibrant public space that does reconnect neighborhoods, expand access to green space and supports safe, reliable mobility for residents and visitors alike.
“The Lowline is more than a park and a path. It is infrastructure that works for people.”
First proposed in 2015, the Lowline will eventually stretch nearly two miles along the spine of the peninsula, extending to Marion Square along a series of alleys between buildings and connecting several neighborhoods with green space.
“This is going to be something great for the city of Charleston,” said outgoing Charleston City Council member Robert Mitchell, whose district is home to the first phase of the Lowline. And I am glad now that it really is a reality. A lot of people have been thinking it wasn’t going to get done, but I told them, ‘It’s going to happen.’”
Plans call for two separate paths — a 10-foot wide walkway and a 12-foot wide bike trail — separated by a landscaped median and several parks along the Lowline.
Charleston City Council on Dec. 2 gave the green light for a $6 million payment to Charlotte-based contractor Edifice Construction to begin the early construction phase. That’s about half of the $15 million that the city already has earmarked for the project.
The route will be broken into three distinct corridors:
- The North Central Corridor will stretch from Romney Street to a planned transit hub on Mount Pleasant Street. It will feature several “pocket parks” underneath the elevated interstate with space for a neighborhood market.
- The Parks district will run from Romney to Line streets bookended by two new parks. Newmarket Creek will serve as a passive park to the north, adding resiliency by capturing millions of gallons of floodwater. Lowline Park, to the south, will feature a large open space behind a King Street strip for events and gatherings.
- The Urban Core constitutes the rest of the path to Marion Square, with greenspace and bike-ped pathways nestled in the alleyways between buildings.
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