Little Sugar Creek Greenway

Little Sugar Creek Greenway
Looking south at E 4th Street overpass
Type	Greenway
Location	Charlotte, North Carolina
Coordinates	35°12′27″N 80°50′11″W / 35.2075°N 80.8365°W / 35.2075; -80.8365Coordinates: 35°12′27″N 80°50′11″W / 35.2075°N 80.8365°W / 35.2075; -80.8365
Operated by	Mecklenburg County Parks and Recreation
Website	Little Sugar Creek Greenway

Little Sugar Creek Greenway is a linear park and stream restoration project in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. When completed it will consist of twenty miles of trails and paved walkways running from Cordelia Park just north of uptown Charlotte, then south through midtown Charlotte, and continuing all the way to the South Carolina state line. The Little Sugar Creek Greenway will be a key part of the Carolina Thread Trail, a regionwide network of trails that will ultimately pass through 15 counties.

Greenways are narrow strips of land, planted and managed to provide both human recreation and wildlife habitat. Greenways along streams, such as Little Sugar Creek, improve water quality and help control flooding. There are about 37 miles of developed greenways in Mecklenburg County, of which this is only one.

The two urban sections of the Little Sugar Creek Greenway were championed by Central Piedmont Community College president Tony Zeiss and together provide five unbroken miles of paved walkway from East 7th Street southward to Brandywine Road.

Unlike many large cities, Charlotte is not sited on or near a sea, lake, or significant river; its hydrogeography is based on small streams and creeks, Little Sugar Creek being perhaps the most prominent. The name of Little Sugar Creek (which has also been called Sugar Creek, a name that has also been applied to what is now called Irwin Creek) derives from the Sugaree tribe indigenous to the area.

Running through some of Charlotte's oldest neighborhoods, over time parts of the stream became hidden by houses, factories, parking lots, riprap, highways, and culverts. Over time, Little Sugar Creek also became very polluted by runoff from factories and sewers, and litter.

As recently as 2000 Little Sugar Creek was "the most polluted stream in Charlotte-Mecklenburg, a fetid stew of runoff and industrial waste trickling beneath parking decks and buildings on the fringe of downtown." Businesses dumped waste straight into its water, the fumes so noxious they were said to peel the paint off nearby buildings. Morever, flood-prone buildings had to be razed, and much of the stream was covered by concrete which had to be removed. The pollution problem began to be solved when straight-piping of wastes was outlawed in 1998; nevertheless Little Sugar Creek Greenway became the most expensive stream restoration in Mecklenburg county.