Posted on July 31, 2024
SHARONVILLE, Ohio — If you have visited Sharon Woods recently, you’ll have noticed Sharon Lake is now drained. This is the second phase of work happening in the lake dredging project at Sharon Woods. This project will run through the fall of 2025 and is currently happening to help improve the health of the lake for both wildlife and guests. We made a visit to the park last week to get an update on the progress so far. The lake is drained, and the construction work is in full swing.
You can see and hear the work happening on both ends of the lake. Todd Palmeter, the CEO of Great Parks, shared more about guest response amidst all of the ongoing change.
“Our visitors have been really great. They have fully embraced the project, you know at first we knew at a lot of times they wouldn’t be able to take their normal walk,” said Palmeter. “The lake loop trail is one of the most beautiful trails in the park district, but we did a lot of improvements across the park to ensure people could get their one, two, three-mile walk in, and the guests have embraced it and enjoyed the walk.”
Though the lake is empty, that doesn’t mean you’ll be unable to enjoy the park’s wildlife.
“Our education staff here at Sharon Woods are doing a program to teach people that just because we’re dredged doesn’t mean the wildlife went away. As a matter of fact, we’ve seen an increase in some wildlife,” said Palmeter, “We see a lot of birds out doing some fishing and kind of nosing around some other areas of the lake, and we’re telling people that that is part of the lake’s health. A lot of things are still here and living and will continue to throughout the lake and will move around as needed as construction moves around.”
The next phase of the project will include the construction of new boardwalks near the boathouse and planting around the lake. Some of these next steps are expected to begin later this fall. You can read more about the project as a whole via the Sharon Lake Improvement Project webpage.
