Walk the Rose Run corridor on any Saturday morning and it feels finished. Runners cross the bridge that lifts the path over Dublin-Granville Road. Parents push strollers from the library toward Market Square. The whole stretch reads like something New Albany simply always had, a ribbon of green connecting the school campus, the library, the McCoy Center for the Arts, and downtown.
It has not always had it. And it is not done.
The version of Rose Run that most current residents know is only the first phase of a project the city has been building, in pieces, for more than two decades. A second phase is now underway, and it lands in a part of the corridor that has never been part of the recreational loop before. If you use these trails as part of your week, the shape of your regular walk is about to shift.
The Loop You Know Is Phase One
New Albany first floated the idea of turning Rose Run into what it called the physical, visual and emotional heart of the community back in a 2003 corridor study. That vision sat on paper for fifteen years. What actually got built, and what most residents are walking on today, opened in 2018 after roughly $17 million in city investment: a bridge and promenade connecting the school district's Learning Community Campus to the New Albany branch of the Columbus Metropolitan Library and Market Square, plus a walking and biking segment running from Fodor Road toward Main Street.
That was Phase I. It is the only Rose Run most people who moved to New Albany in the last eight years have ever known, which is part of why it reads as a finished civic amenity rather than the midpoint of a longer build.
Here is the timeline as the city and its project partners describe it:
| Milestone | Year |
|---|---|
| Rose Run Greenway Corridor Study sets the original vision | 2003 |
| Phase I opens: bridge, promenade, Fodor Road to Main Street segment | 2018 |
| Preliminary work begins on Phase II | 2026 |
| Phase II, including the Veterans Memorial, targeted for completion | Late fall 2027 |
Fifteen years between the plan and the first shovel. Eight years between the first phase and the second. That pace is worth sitting with, because it means the current push is not a minor add-on. It is the corridor's next real chapter.
What Phase II Actually Adds
The city's Rose Run project page confirms preliminary work has begun on the next phase, which will sit between Village Hall and the New Albany Police Department, a stretch of the corridor that has functioned as municipal ground rather than parkland up to now. The centerpiece is a new Veterans Memorial: a heroes walk, a contemplative plaza, a life-size sculpture honoring Gold Star mothers, and a water feature designed for quiet reflection. Engineering partner EMH&T, which is continuing its work with the city on this phase, has confirmed the same late fall 2027 completion window.
That timing matters for anyone planning around this space. Phase II is not a weekend project. It is a multi-year build sitting directly adjacent to the loop residents already use to get from the library to Market Square. The next time your walk takes you past Village Hall, look for the first signs of that work. It is the leading edge of a project that will still be under construction well into 2027.
The practical shift is geographic as much as anything. Phase I built the eastern half of the vision, tying the school campus and library to downtown. Phase II extends the corridor westward into civic ground that has never carried foot traffic in quite this way. Once it is finished, the loop most residents walk today will have a second anchor point it currently lacks.
Fall's Calendar Runs Through the Same Ground
None of this pauses the calendar. Market Square and the surrounding corridor are hosting a run of fall events in the coming weeks, and several land on the same Sunday.
- Healthy New Albany Walking Classic, Sunday, September 13, starting at Market Square
- Fall Mama Made Market, also Sunday, September 13, at Wexner Pavilion
- A build-your-own botanical workshop at BrewDog New Albany, Sunday, September 13
- DogFest North Central, Sunday, September 20
- New Albany Fall Festival & TreatFest by KidsLinked, Sunday, October 11, at Marburn Academy
Three separate events cluster on September 13 alone, all within walking distance of the same Market Square hub that anchors the Rose Run loop. That is not a coincidence so much as a sign of how much of New Albany's public life still funnels through this one corridor. It is also a reason to plan a route rather than assume one. If your Sunday includes the Walking Classic and a stop at the Mama Made Market, you are already tracing the edge of a construction zone that will only get busier over the next year.
The Rest of the System Keeps Growing Regardless
Rose Run gets the attention because it is the civic centerpiece, but it is one piece of a much larger network. New Albany maintains more than 84 miles of leisure trails citywide, and the city adds roughly two to three miles of new trail every year, a pace that has held steady for years running. That expansion is funded in large part by income tax revenue from the New Albany International Business Park, which accounts for roughly 80 percent of the city's general fund and covers everything from trail upkeep to snow removal.
That funding structure is worth understanding because it explains why construction at Rose Run does not mean the broader system slows down. Taylor Farm Park, a nearly 100-acre property with boardwalk loops through wetlands, and Ratchford Fens, a smaller passive park with its own pond and boardwalk tucked between the Upper Fenway and Fenway subdivisions, both keep operating independent of whatever is happening at Rose Run. If your usual loop runs through the construction zone over the next year, both are reasonable alternates that do not require driving out of the neighborhood.
A Corridor Still Being Built
The easy read on Rose Run is that New Albany has a finished trail system and a busy fall calendar sitting on top of it. The more accurate read is that the corridor most residents treat as permanent is actually a decade-plus into a build that will not close out until late 2027, and the next phase happens to land right where a lot of weekend foot traffic already passes.
That is worth knowing whether you are training for the Walking Classic, walking a dog toward DogFest, or just doing the after-dinner loop past the library. The New Albany you are walking through is not a finished product. It is a city still actively shaping the ground under your feet, one phase at a time.
If New Albany's mix of trails, Market Square events, and steady civic investment is part of what drew you to this neighborhood, Luxe Home Team knows this corridor the way a resident does, not just as a listing address. Reach out to Teresa Powell's team for a complimentary market report whenever you're ready to talk about what a move in or around New Albany actually looks like.
