The Old Shawnee Lookout Golf Course Is Ready for Its Trail Crew
October 8, 2026
October 8, 2026
"There's no ecological value to a piped stream. No wildlife can use it. It's not a water source. There's no habitat." That's how Devin Schenk explained what was wrong with the old fairways at Shawnee Lookout. Schenk directs The Nature Conservancy's Ohio Mitigation Program, and he was describing a golf course built by running most of its streams through underground pipes.
The former course at the park, which sits at 2008 Lawrenceburg Road with a North Bend mailing address, has been through a long stretch of digging since spring 2025. That stage is mostly finished. The project is now building a trail, and Great Parks of Hamilton County has asked for volunteers to help.
The first phase removed things. Great Parks and The Nature Conservancy describe the job as taking out underground culverts and asphalt golf cart paths, restoring natural stream features, and replacing invasive plants with native vegetation along the streams.
Here is how far that work has come. As of The Nature Conservancy's May 8, 2026 update, the pipes were out, about 1.25 miles of buried stream had been uncovered, and 0.9 miles had been reconnected to the floodplain. Reconnecting a stream to its floodplain gives high water room to spread out, which the Conservancy says improves both habitat and water quality. The full plan covers nearly two miles of buried streams and a total restoration area of 84 acres.
When WVXU covered the start of the work in April 2025, it counted more than 9,000 feet of buried streams. The site has a main channel running east to west, with tributaries coming in from the north and south, and all of it drains to the Great Miami River. A month later, a WCPO crew spotted a leftover from the old course: a golf ball stuck in a stream bank, near a large culvert still carrying water toward the river.
The golf course had nearly 40 years behind it when the Cincinnati Enquirer reported in December 2018 that Great Parks would close it. Its last season ran from April 1 to September 30, 2019. WLWT reported then that rounds played had stayed flat or dropped even after the course tried new concepts, and that keeping it going would have meant major capital spending in the near future.
How the project is funded explains why the land became a stream restoration and not just mowed open space. Great Parks and the Conservancy say the stream work is paid for entirely through the Conservancy's Ohio In-Lieu Fee Mitigation Program. Under that program, the fees paid to offset permitted damage to waterways elsewhere are pooled and spent on restoration. Jennifer McDonald, the Conservancy's restoration ecologist and project lead, told Fox19 that pooling those fees made it possible to do one larger restoration at a single site. Great Parks is paying separately to restore an additional portion of the land.
Great Parks CEO Todd Palmeter described the goal as returning the fairways and bunkers to a natural state and making the park a hiking destination. That's where the trail comes in.
Shawnee Lookout isn't ordinary parkland. Great Parks calls it an important archaeological district, lived in for more than 10,000 years by several Indigenous groups. Schenk said the planning team worked with the Miami Tribe so the design would respect that cultural history. Logan York, Tribal Historic Preservation Officer for the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma, told WVXU that the consultation covered where the project boundaries would go and which areas to avoid, including sacred and archaeological places.
The new trail has to follow those same limits. Great Parks says the two-mile natural-surface trail will keep to an accessible grade and connect better with the land around it. In other words, the route has to work for walkers, stay off protected ground, and fit around stream channels that were dug only in the last year and a half.
Great Parks' timeline puts the work in three stages:
The agency calls that timeline an estimate that could change. Today is October 4, so the project is now in stage two.
That stage is where the public comes in. On Wednesday, October 14, from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m., Great Parks is holding a "Golf Course Restoration & Trail Work" volunteer session at Shawnee Lookout. It's open to adults 18 and older, and you need to register. The listing asks for help establishing a new trail through the former course, which it says will become a hiking route "across streams and through wooded areas and grasslands." Registration is through the Great Parks volunteer page and the event's calendar listing.
This isn't the first time volunteers have worked this ground. In November 2025, community members planted tree nuts on the site, from Ohio buckeyes to pin oaks, all donated by people around the state. They got a tour of the restoration work as part of the day. Schenk said the planting let the project use "seeds that can be harvested from everybody's yards." The trail session on the 14th is the next chance for the public to take part.
Only the old golf cart paths are closed, and they have been since March 25, 2025. The Eagle's Landing parking lot is still open, and the park roads and other trails aren't affected. Shawnee Lookout covers 2,179 acres and is open daily from dawn until dusk, so most of the park works the same as always.
Three marked trails are open right now. Great Parks rates all three as moderate:
The new route will add two miles to those 3.6. Once it opens, the former golf course will have more marked trail than any one of the park's current trails, and Great Parks says the route will improve connections to the surrounding landscape.
The park's fall programs are scheduled around the construction, and a few of them draw on the same history that shaped the trail plan:
The Harvest Jamboree is free and open to all ages, though some activities cost extra. Great Parks thanks Vistra Miami Fort Power Plant for its continued support of the event. It's the biggest public event on the park's fall calendar, and it falls during the trail-building window.
Great Parks expects the former golf course to reopen to the public in spring 2027. The Conservancy's May 2026 story described its own part of the project as wrapping up in fall 2026. The two dates probably refer to different phases: the Conservancy's stream work, and Great Parks' trail and public access. Neither organization has spelled out that difference.
The planting numbers also come from separate sources. Great Parks' project page plans 24,000 native trees and shrubs once the trail work is done. The Conservancy's May 2026 story said it planned to plant more than 30,000 additional trees that spring. Neither organization has said whether those figures overlap. For the latest schedule, check the Great Parks project page, which will be updated before any other source.
For now, the October 14 trail session and the November 7 and 8 Jamboree are the two dates confirmed before the end of the year, and both are open to the public.
When we help clients settle near Cleves, part of our job is knowing which places nearby are changing and when they'll be ready. The old Shawnee Lookout course is one of the biggest of those changes on the west side. If you're thinking about what life around Cleves and the rivers might look like for you, Michele Donovan and our team would be glad to talk it through. Find Your Match — Start Here.
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