For six Thursdays this fall, Symphony Park has looked exactly the way it has since 2023: blankets spread across the lawn near Barclay Downs Drive, a food truck line forming by 5:30, a band setting up under the bandshell at 4400 Sharon Road. Two of those Thursdays are left. After October 9, the park closes for a year, and the version everyone in SouthPark has been picnicking at won't come back in the same shape.
SouthPark After 5, the free Thursday concert series that SouthPark Community Partners has run at Symphony Park since 2023, wraps its fall run on October 9 after opening September 4. The series has pulled nearly 65,000 people through the park's gates since it started, according to organizers, and this particular six-week stretch was always going to end. What makes it different is what happens next: SouthPark Community Partners has confirmed that construction on a yearlong renovation begins this fall, and After 5 goes on hiatus until the park reopens.
What's Still on the Calendar
Two Thursdays remain as of this week.
- October 2 — Y2K Kids performs, with the Books on the House mobile library on site for families.
- October 9 — Petty Rewind closes out the season, and the first 500 attendees get a free pumpkin patch activation.
Earlier nights this season brought Coconut Groove Band paired with a performance from the North Carolina Brazilian Arts Project as part of the Charlotte International Arts Festival, and a Bourbon Sons set with free sunflowers for the first 500 people through the gate. Both are behind us now, which is exactly the point: this run has a fixed number of dates left, not an open-ended season.
The format holds for the two remaining nights. Gates open with an opener from 5 to 6:30 p.m., the main act plays 7 to 9, and the whole evening is free to attend. Dogs are welcome as long as they're leashed and friendly. Bring your own blanket or chairs since there's no reserved seating on the lawn. Outside food is fine, but outside beverages and coolers aren't permitted under state ABC rules, so plan on the food trucks or the mobile bar if you want a drink. Paved paths run through the park for wheelchairs, strollers, and anyone who'd rather not deal with grass.
Getting There Without Fighting for a Parking Spot
Symphony Park's on-site lot is small, and SouthPark Community Partners has been telling people outright to skip it. The workaround is the SouthPark Skipper, a free on-demand shuttle service that's been running in the neighborhood since November 2024. It's operated by Freebee, a company that runs similar electric microtransit fleets across more than 40 East Coast markets, and rides in SouthPark run daily from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. through an app.
The Skipper launched as a one-year pilot and had logged more than 7,000 rides by January 2025, with an average wait under eight minutes. It's still running, and it's built specifically to move people around the SouthPark business district without needing a car for short trips: office to restaurant, apartment to grocery store, or in this case, wherever you're parked to the gate at Symphony Park. If you've never used it for an After 5 night, the remaining two Thursdays are a reasonable time to try.
Why This Closure Is Different From a Coat of Paint
It would be easy to file this under routine park maintenance. It isn't. Adam Rhew, president and CEO of SouthPark Community Partners, has said that once the renovation is finished, Symphony Park will go from hosting roughly 80 events a year to around 250, a jump he attributes directly to the new design rather than to demand that already existed. That's not a park getting prettier. That's a park being rebuilt to be usable on a completely different schedule, from small sunrise yoga sessions with a dozen people to gatherings that could draw thousands.
The money behind the project explains a lot about what the rebuilt park will actually be. The renovation rests on a roughly $21 million public-private split, though organizers say the final number will likely run higher. The City of Charlotte is putting in $8 million, earmarked for pedestrian access improvements around the park. Simon Property Group, which owns both Symphony Park and the adjacent SouthPark Mall, is contributing another $8 million, and that money is specifically tied to two anchor restaurants planned for the site. A private capital campaign is chasing a $5 million goal and had raised just over $3 million as of this summer. TowneBank added $1.5 million on top of that for naming rights, which is why the park will reopen as TowneBank Symphony Park.
That restaurant money matters more than it might seem. The free, bring-your-own-blanket lawn that's hosting Petty Rewind on October 9 is being redesigned to sit alongside paid dining. The park isn't just getting new landscaping. It's getting a different relationship between free community programming and commercial space, funded by the mall next door.
What Comes Back in Fall 2027
Permits for the project were filed in June, and additional soil testing pushed the construction start from originally planned dates into this fall. SouthPark Community Partners expects the park to reopen next fall, meaning the Thursday-night lawn you know now won't be usable again until roughly a year from this month.
When it does reopen, the 7.4-acre site is expected to include:
- Two boardwalks connecting the Carnegie Boulevard and Barclay Downs Drive sides of the park, tying directly into The Loop, the roughly three-mile urban trail being built through SouthPark
- A rebuilt bandshell designed to support light and projection art, not just live sound
- Permanent public restrooms, replacing the portable units used during events now
- Micro-retail stalls scattered through the grounds
- Terraced and flat event lawns, rather than one uniform slope
- Two pedestrian bridges linking the park to surrounding streets
- Interactive areas built for children
- Two restaurants, tenants still unannounced as of mid-2026
The Loop connection is part of a bigger push happening independently of the park itself. The city is separately spending roughly $3.625 million on a 0.2-mile stretch of that trail near Cameron Valley Parkway and Carnegie Boulevard, stitching together sections that have existed in pieces for years. Symphony Park's renovation adds another 500 to 600 feet to that trail once its own boardwalks go in.
All of it traces back to the SouthPark Forward 2035 Vision Plan, the roughly $250 million framework of public and private projects that also produced the Skipper shuttle. Symphony Park's overhaul is the most visible piece of that plan so far, and the one most residents will actually feel, since it takes their Thursday-night routine offline for a year.
The bandshell playing Petty Rewind on October 9 won't host another concert until fall 2027, under a new name, next to restaurants that haven't been announced yet.
If you're trying to keep track of what's changing around Symphony Park, from the shuttle routes to what eventually opens where those two restaurant spaces sit, Carolina Living & Estates is paying attention to how SouthPark keeps reshaping itself. Reach out anytime you want an update on where things stand.
