Locust Avenue's 1924 water main is being replaced in sections. The section between East High Street and the Route 250 Bridge was finished in the spring of 2026. The week of October 19, crews move to the stretch between Locust Lane and the Route 250 Bridge. On October 1, less than three weeks before that start, a coffee trailer opened at the far end of the finished section, where East High Street meets the Rivanna River. So from now until early 2027, the end of Locust Avenue with no open trenches is also the end with something new at the bottom of it.
What the city is digging, and in what order
The city's October 8 release on Phase Two explains why the work is happening at all. The Locust Avenue main went in in 1924. For the last decade it has averaged about one leak a year, and it had three leaks in 2021 alone. The project is split into segments that run over more than a year:
| Segment | Limits | Timing |
|---|---|---|
| Phase One | East High Street to the Route 250 Bridge | Completed spring 2026 |
| Phase Two, first section | Locust Lane to Smith Street | Begins week of October 19, 2026; three to four months |
| Winter pause | No work | Until early summer 2027 |
| Phase Two, second section | Smith Street to the Route 250 Bridge | Early summer 2027; three to four months |
Pyramid Construction is the contractor and AH Engineering Consultants is the engineering firm. The release gives the work limits and the timing. It does not include a detour plan, lane closures, or parking restrictions. Questions like those are what the open house is for. The city's Traffic Engineer will be there with the Department of Utilities, the engineers, and Pyramid. It runs Thursday, October 15, from 4:30 to 6:00 p.m. at Sunrise Elementary School, 1300 Long Street. Light refreshments will be served. If you can't make it, the city posts periodic updates at charlottesville.gov/utilitiescip, and Utilities Outreach takes questions at [email protected].
The pause is the date to remember
The city says the winter break comes from what crews learned during Phase One. It is meant to avoid winter weather problems and reduce the impact on the area. Counting three to four months from the week of October 19, the Locust Lane to Smith Street section should wrap up between mid-January and mid-February 2027. After that, the street is quiet until early summer. Then the Smith Street to Route 250 Bridge section takes about another three to four months.
For anyone who lives on or uses that northern stretch, the work comes in two blocks: this winter and next summer. The first block covers the holidays. The second covers the months when the street sees the most foot and bike traffic. The finished section between the bypass and East High Street is not part of any of it.
What's at the bottom of the finished stretch
The Rivanna River Company opened Riversong Cafe on October 1. It is a coffee trailer serving a full espresso menu, drip coffee, tea, locally grown beans from JBird, and pastries and treats from MarieBette. It is open Wednesday through Monday, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sonya Silver, a co-owner of the river company, explained the idea to WVIR:
"A big motivation for us was just to give people new reasons to come down here and kind of lower the barrier to just spending time in the space and walking the trail and maybe getting a delicious coffee and then going on a walk makes it all the more appealing."
The opening timing matters more than it might seem. The river company's tubing season runs May through September, depending on weather and river conditions. The cafe opened the day after that season ended. Anna Trainum, the operations manager, told CBS19 the cafe plans to stay open year-round, weather permitting, with indoor seating and wood-fired stoves. She said the first week was busy, with many customers coming for the coffee and seeing the Rivanna Trail and the river for the first time. That gives the field by the river a reason to draw people in November and February, which tubing never did.
The river company's own location page gives the address as 1520 E High St. The site is a riverside field off East High Street. The access road runs between Hogwaller Brewing and Sugar Bear Ice Cream, and parking is down a gravel road in the mowed field. If you're walking from Locust Grove, that route uses the stretch of Locust Avenue that just finished construction, so there are no work zones on the way.
The trail section it sits on
The river company launches near Free Bridge and uses Free Bridge and Riverview Park as take-outs. The Rivanna Trails Foundation guide breaks this part of the loop into two sections. One runs from Woolen Mills to Riverview Park. The other runs from Riverview Park to Route 250 at Free Bridge. At Riverview Park, the trail is hard-surfaced along the river and includes a spur loop inside the park. The foundation notes that its electronic map is more detailed and current than the printable PDF. Neither the trail guide nor the river company's page spells out the exact footpath from the parking field to the trail. On a first visit, the map is the safer guide.
There is one short-term catch. Through October 23, weather permitting, the city is removing invasive plants on the Pen Park Fitness Trail and several Rivanna Trail sections. Signs and caution tape mark the closed work zones, and some trails close temporarily. For the next two weeks, a loop that worked last month might hit a taped-off stretch.
What the north side wraps up for the season
North of the bypass, the summer's weekly anchor is done. This year the city moved Farmers in the Park to the east side of the Pen Park lot, which gave the market wider, shadier walkways and more room for programming. It ran Wednesdays from 3 to 7 p.m. at 1300 Pen Park Road. The September 23 market was canceled because of expected rain. The city said it planned to reopen September 30, the last Wednesday of a season that ran through September.
That leaves Pen Park's fall season without its Wednesday market. The Fitness Trail work runs until October 23. And the Locust Avenue section that starts the same week sits between much of the neighborhood and the park. Meanwhile, the cafe by the river is open six days a week.
Leaf collection is next. City curbside pickup of loose leaves starts Monday, October 26. Crews work on a rotating schedule and visit each neighborhood three times, and residents can sign up for text alerts. The leaf announcement and the Phase Two release don't say how pickups will work on the blocks between Locust Lane and Smith Street while construction is underway. That's another question for October 15.
The garden to the west is building too
The Botanical Garden of the Piedmont in McIntire Park is starting its own construction. In a September 5 update, the garden said the pedestrian bridge would be the first visible part of Phase I. The bridge will span the restored stream and connect the two sides of the site to the rest of McIntire Park. The update expected construction to begin by early October and continue through winter. No source confirms that work has actually started. The garden says it will stay open during construction, though access may change at times. Building the bridge first is meant to open up the south side of the site, with more trails and gathering areas. The garden's October events give you a way to see the site before that happens.
The rest of October, in order
- Tuesday, October 13: Little Nature Explorers at the Botanical Garden of the Piedmont. It's a free program for ages 3 to 5 and their caregivers.
- Thursday, October 15, 4:30 to 6:00 p.m.: The Locust Avenue Phase Two open house at Sunrise Elementary, 1300 Long Street.
- Monday, October 19, 3 to 4 p.m.: A garden site tour at 950 Melbourne Road.
- Week of October 19: Phase Two construction begins between Locust Lane and Smith Street.
- Tuesday, October 20: Another Little Nature Explorers session, this one about fall leaves.
- Friday, October 23: The last scheduled day of invasive-plant work on the Pen Park Fitness Trail and Rivanna Trail sections.
- Monday, October 26: City leaf collection begins.
Riversong Cafe is open on every date above except Tuesdays.
We follow Locust Grove the way we follow every neighborhood we work in, one street and one schedule at a time. If the Locust Avenue work raises questions about your own block, from timing to what a construction season means for a home on that stretch, the team at Nest Realty is glad to talk it through, even before the open house. Get Started Now.
