Taylor's Wave and Riverside Park are taking shape in stages, with the river feature and park amenities on separate timelines.
As Mountain Xpress reported, the French Broad River never actually closed. It runs under permit requirements that Woodfin cannot override, which means the town has never had legal authority to keep paddlers off the water outside the active construction zone. So while the whitewater feature known as Taylor's Wave has spent two years listed as "under construction," people have been quietly testing the unfinished ledge anyway. Town officials have discouraged it. They have not been able to stop it.
Those separate timelines are visible at Riverside Park this fall: visitors are already arriving while some amenities remain under construction.
The River and Its Access Rules
Taylor's Wave sits just north of the Craggy Bridge, upriver from the existing Riverside Park, built into the riverbed as an engineered ledge of natural rock and concrete. The design was tested years ago in a hydraulics lab at Czech Technical University in Prague, modeled loosely on New Zealand's Camphill Surf Park, and it's built to behave differently depending on how much water is moving through it. At flows up to roughly 1,500 cubic feet per second, the wave is friendlier territory for intermediate kayakers, standup surfers, and even novice boogie boarders. Push past that and it turns into something meant for advanced paddlers only.
None of that engineering detail matters much to someone driving down Riverside Drive on a Saturday, but the underlying legal reality does. Because the river stays open by default, Woodfin's only real tools have been discouragement and signage, not enforcement. That's part of why paddlers have already been getting rides on a structure the town still officially calls incomplete.
A Parking Lot Is a Pretty Good Early Warning System
At the Town Council's June 16 meeting this year, Town Manager Shannon Tuch reported that construction was making what she called really good progress and remained on track for a late summer or early fall finish. But the same meeting spent real time on a problem that only exists because people are already showing up: available parking near the site has been filling on recent weekends, and council members raised concerns about the strain on Riverside Park and the surrounding recreational area.
The response wasn't to close anything down. It was to write rules for what happens once this gets bigger. Council approved a special-events policy at that meeting establishing permitting requirements, safety plans, and crowd management standards for larger gatherings on town property, explicitly including future competitions at Taylor's Wave. In other words, Woodfin is now writing its playbook for hosting whitewater events at a feature that technically hasn't opened yet, because the demand arrived on its own timeline instead of the town's.
What's Actually Left to Build
The wave itself is only one piece of a larger job. The eastern half of the ledge, the section that took the longest because of unusually hard bedrock, was finished in April 2026. Work on the western half began in May, and according to Tuch's June update, crews had not run into the same extensive rock on that side, which she treated as a good sign for staying on schedule.
Riverside Park's expansion is running on a parallel but separate track. The original 4-acre park, donated to the town and built in 1998, is being doubled with the addition of almost 4 more acres to the south. Part of that land used to function as an industrial landfill, and the town has been removing roughly 26,000 cubic yards of old construction debris, steel, and concrete as part of the cleanup, work that also builds in wetlands and stormwater storage meant to soften future flooding along that stretch of the French Broad. Restrooms, changing rooms, an overlook pavilion, spectator terraces, and expanded parking are all part of that same buildout.
So when people ask whether the wave is done, there are really two separate answers. The in-river structure is close. The park built around it, the part with enough parking and restrooms to handle a crowd, is still catching up.
Whose Name Is on the Ledge
The wave carries the name of Taylor Hunt, a paddler who died in a whitewater accident in Ecuador in 2015 at age 22. His father, Marc Hunt, a former Asheville City Council member, has spent close to a decade pushing for a whitewater feature on the French Broad, first proposing it for the River Arts District back in the 1990s before pitching it to Woodfin's then-mayor, Jerry Vehaun, who backed the idea immediately. The Hunt family made a $200,000 donation toward the project, and the name was formally established in 2023 to honor both Taylor and the family's ongoing support.
As SurferToday reported, Marc Hunt described the effort as people honoring and loving a river. That framing has stuck with the project through two Helene delays, a bond referendum, and years of engineering work most residents will never see, and it's part of why the wave carries more weight locally than a typical parks department ribbon-cutting would.
What to Actually Do This Fall
For anyone who wants to see any of this in person while construction continues, here's what's useful to know right now.
- Riverside Park sits at 1630 Riverside Drive, just north of the Craggy Bridge, with the wave located just upriver from the existing park.
- A marked portage, using buoys and shoreline signage, directs river traffic around the active construction zone so paddlers passing through can rejoin the river once they're clear of it.
- Silver-Line Park, a nearly 5-acre site donated by the Silvers family just north of the Silver-Line Plastics facility, is already open and offers another river access point nearby while the bigger park expansion continues.
- Weekend parking near Riverside Park has already been tight, so plan around that rather than expecting an empty lot.
These details describe Riverside Park and nearby river access in Woodfin this September, while construction continues.
A Small Town Getting Used to Its Own Momentum
Woodfin voted to fund this back in 2016, long before anyone could picture what a finished wave would actually look like from the road. Nearly a decade later, the town has an event policy for future gatherings and is seeing weekend parking fill while construction continues. This public amenity is taking shape in stages, with visitors arriving before all park amenities are complete.
If you're already living along the Riverside corridor and curious how projects like this tend to shape a neighborhood over the years that follow, or you just want to compare notes on what you're seeing at the park, Nick Coco Signature Properties is always glad to talk it through. Let's Connect.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
