McCoys Creek flows into the St. Johns River again as a steel barrier between them is lifted on Thursday, Oct. 2, 2025. | Dan Scanlan, Jacksonville Today
Published on October 2, 2025 at 2:02 pm
Free local news and info, in your inbox at 6 a.m. M-F. Sign up for the Jacksonville Today newsletter.
Reconnecting McCoys Creek with the St. Johns River on Thursday was not as dramatic as Charlton Heston’s cinematic parting of the Red Sea in the 1956 film The Ten Commandments.
Instead, the removal of a steel plate between the muddy waters of both allowed the waterway to quietly rejoin the St. Johns River after its channel was moved east after decades of flowing under a nearby — but long gone — parking lot.
Jacksonville Today thanks our sponsors. Become one.
The city called the project the “McCoys Creek Outfall Realignment.” McCoys Creek used to flood the Mixon Town community before passing through Lackawanna and Brooklyn. The creek was rerouted in earlier phases of a six-year city project to restore it to a more natural state that was less flood-prone.
The creek now ends in a concrete channel that is part of a $52.8 million project. It is open to the sky instead of being hidden by the Florida Times-Union’s former parking lot, where the One Riverside development now stands.
“This was primarily a flood-reduction project, so to solve those problems that everybody was used to seeing on King Street and Mixon Town, when every time a hard rain came and we had flooding, this is what fixes that,” said Nikita Reed, project manager for the Public Works project.
Jacksonville Today thanks our sponsors. Become one.
“It is important on a larger scale to do it in the way that we did because it shows that you can solve flood reduction, which can also have all of these benefits.”
As city officials prepared to reconnect the creek and river, Mayor Donna Deegan called it a “true River City moment.” The work also is part of the city’s Emerald Trail project, a 30-mile route of trails and parks under construction nearby to connect Jacksonville’s oldest communities.
“The design creates multiple benefits,” said Kay Ehas, CEO of Groundwork Jacksonville, a nonprofit that spearheads the Emerald Trail project. “It not only reduces flooding, it significantly improves water quality, creates great habitat for fish and wildlife, and provides recreational access.
“And at some point, you will see floating wetlands in the creek outfall to further encourage fish, giving them food and some refuge.”
McCoys Creek phases
Segments of the Northbank Riverwalk have been closed in recent years as park and residential development blossoms on the shoreline. But as much of that construction continues, so have earlier phases of the McCoys Creek project.
“For decades, McCoys Creek was buried in a hidden way,” Deegan said before the waterways were reconnected. “But creeks and rivers have a way of reminding us that they are alive. It has always been here, quietly flowing beneath our city. Today, we mark the next chapter of ongoing work to bring it back to the light where it belongs.”
Phase I between Leland Street and Interstate 95 was done late last year. The restored creek is wider and deeper, with a vastly increased floodplain after McCoys Creek Boulevard, which often flooded during storms, was removed to widen the waterway.
“We also added lots of wetlands and vegetation because we had the space to do that” and help enrich fish life in the waterway, said Reed, the project manager.
In July 2024, the Northbank Riverwalk east and west of the McCoys Creek work zone was closed to all pedestrians and bicyclists to begin building the McCoys Creek Outfall, and the bridge overhead was removed.
A number of new pedestrian bridges whose designs mimic the nearby railroad bridge have been added between the east and west banks of the new concrete creek channel, while stairs lead down to creekside walkways that will soon have benches.
Future McCoys Creek plans
The channel may look like a “concrete ditch,” Reed said. But those waterside walkways, flanked by walls with texturing designed to look like palm fronds, serve another purpose.
“In times of large storm events it is designed to be overtopped by the water,” Reed said, speaking on a walkway. “It becomes a part of a larger conveyance system, taking everything out to the river. So if you see water up here at some time, that’s OK. That means everything is working as planned.”
The new, wider channel also will encourage more fish to swim in and use the floating wetlands as fish nurseries upstream, “little safe places” to protect them from bigger fish, Reed said.
While the new McCoys Creek channel is now open, public access to boaters will be restricted until more construction is done by the end of the year, Reed said.
McCoy’s Creek ultimately will be flanked in about two years by 2 acres of riverfront public park space, including an Emerald Trail multiuse path on the west side, and amenities on the east side that have not yet been designed.
“It’s going to depend on what we are building,” Reed said. “If it’s a lot of green space, and maybe only a few structures, that doesn’t take so long. If you start taking about big things like we are doing at Riverfront Plaza, that’s a different construction time.”
The park will be accessible from Riverside Avenue as well as the Northbank Riverwalk. And the riverwalk’s bridge over the creek, removed during construction, should be replaced soon as well, she said.
