Two years and $20 million later, Sharon Lake at Sharon Woods park will reopen in time for visitors to enjoy the spring weather.
Along with Sharon Lake and its accompanying trail reopening, the Sharon Lake Improvement Project has added new boardwalks over the water at the park, as well as fishing piers, a floating kayak launch and double the amount of wetlands.
In April 2024, Great Parks of Hamilton County closed Sharon Lake and its amenities to begin the project that would protect the lake’s long-term health and bring the amenities back to compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Visitors will be able to enjoy most of the new amenities by the fourth week of March, according to a Great Parks news release. By summertime, folks will be able to kayak on the lake. But fishing hobbyists will have to wait several years to cast their lines at the park again.
Fishing will return
Repopulating the lake is not as simple as dumping fish into the water all at once. The team has to ensure the ecosystem is functioning and self-sustaining before allowing people to fish again, said Director of Natural Resources for Great Parks Jessica Spencer.
This process starts with adding food for the feeder fish including algae, plankton and aquatic insects. This spring, Great Parks will stock the lake with those finger-sized feeder fish. Once Spencer’s team can guarantee the feeder fish have enough food sources to thrive, they’ll add bluegills, bass and catfish.
After about a year or two, once the entire ecosystem is able to sustain itself, the park will welcome anglers back to Sharon Lake.
Sharon Woods popular with visitors
Sharon Woods had 1.2 million visitors in 2025, making it the second most popular Great Parks location behind Winton Woods for the year, said Janet Broughton Murray, Great Parks chief of planning. From 2019 to 2024, the park got about 600,000 to 800,000 visitors each year.
Even though the Sharon Woods playground had just opened in fall 2024, this huge jump in numbers was shocking for Broughton Murray considering the lake has been closed.
Trail rerouted, lake refreshed
Once the lake reopens, all amenities, including parking spaces and the routes connecting them, will meet Americans with Disabilities Act standards.
Before the improvement project, the Sharon Lake Loop Trail was too steep in some places and went through a tunnel that is too narrow, Broughton Murray said. Working with Urban Forestry Manager Steve Grimm, the design team rerouted the trail to fix the issues while minimizing impacts to existing trees.
“If there was any wiggle room at all, we would try to nudge the trail a tiny bit away from the tree so that it wouldn’t impact the root zone enough that it could potentially cause stress to the tree,” Spencer said.
A large component of the project was completely draining the lake to remove its excess sediment, Broughton Murray said.
Most lakes in this area are man-made, according to Spencer. They’re created for flood control and recreation.
“Even in natural lakes though, over time, the lakes will fill with sediment and sort of become wetlands and then eventually become land,” she said.
To keep the body of water a lake and an effective flood-control tool, Great Parks periodically dredges to remove excess sediment at the bottom of the lake. Sharon Lake was last dredged from 1986 to 1988.
Sediment repurposed for wetlands
Dredging isn’t unique, but repurposing the sediment within a lake to create wetlands is, according to Spencer.
Wetlands surround the lake and filter out excess sediments and nutrients from the water before it reaches the lake, Spencer said. She called wetlands the kidneys of the landscape.
Broughton Murray added that more filtration means dredging can be more targeted in the future.
An excess of nutrients entering the lake has previously allowed duckweed to flourish. While this plant is harmless, it prevents sunlight and oxygen from reaching deeper levels of the lake, causing harm to fish and other plants. Rampant duckweed also makes it harder to paddle through the water.
Certain wildlife like waterfowl and rare and endangered plants also depend exclusively on wetlands. Since the early 18th century, 90% of Ohio’s wetlands have been destroyed. “It’s really important that we’re adding it back,” Spencer said.
New harbor planned
Construction on a $17 million project to add a new harbor and play areas among other amenities will begin in fall 2026. The harbor is set to open in spring 2028.
Once the Sharon Woods Harbor Revitalization is complete, visitors can look forward to an educational amphitheater, new boathouse, refreshed snack bar, and expanded parking and restrooms, according to a Great Parks news release.
Sharon Lake’s amenities will remain open throughout the work. However, a small section of the lake trail that runs through the harbor area will close by October 2026.
To keep boating available in the meantime, Great Parks will open a temporary boathouse at the Sharon Woods Lakeside Lodge on the east side of the lake in late May. The permanent harbor boathouse will stay closed during construction.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Sharon Woods lake, trail set to reopen after 2 years. See what’s new
Reporting by Gillian Stawiszynski, Cincinnati Enquirer / Cincinnati Enquirer
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
