NC to lease Umstead State Park land to Wake County for mountain bike trails
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- State approves 252‑acre Umstead lease to Wake County for mountain bike trails
- Leased land is adjacent to 151 acres of trails the county leases from RDU airport
- County must plan the trails and identify funding before construction begins
Wake County will lease 252 acres of Umstead State Park near Raleigh-Durham International Airport where it hopes to build and maintain mountain bike trails.
The lease will allow the county to expand the network of trails it maintains on an adjacent 151 acres it leases from RDU. The combined 400 acres for forest would create an off-road cycling destination to rival the one Wake recently lost at Lake Crabtree County Park when the airport did not renew a long-term lease there.
The lease for the Umstead property was approved this week by the Council of State, the 10 top statewide-elected officials led by the governor. The county will pay a nominal fee of $1 a year for seven years, with two 10-year renewal options.
The lease is a big step, but a lot of work remains, said Chris Snow, Wake County’s director of parks, recreation and open space.
“This gives us the right to be out there doing planning, doing surveys, doing environmental work that we have to do beforehand,” Snow said. “It doesn’t necessarily mean we’re going to be out there building trails right off the bat.”
Wake must determine how much the trails will cost and how to pay for them. The county previously came up with a rough estimate of $1 million, Snow said, but that number could change depending on the scope of the project and how much of the design and building is done by volunteers.
“There’s a lot questions still to be answered,” he said.
Much of the trail network in Lake Crabtree County Park was enhanced and maintained by cycling groups, notably the Triangle Off-Road Cyclists or TORC. They would likely have a hand in creating and caring for new trails in Umstead.
The cycling community has long sought off-road trails in Umstead, with the support of The Umstead Coalition, a group of organizations that work to protect the park. “We are pleased this is moving forward,” coalition chair Jean Spooner wrote when word of lease negotiations surfaced earlier this year.
The bike trails would be blazed in an isolated corner of the park, west of the Reedy Creek multi-use trail near the airport. Park officials have made it clear they would support the development of trails there only if they were part of a larger network and if the park had help maintaining them.
Wake County began leasing the adjoining land from RDU in 2022 to complement the trails at nearby Lake Crabtree County Park. To the airport, the lease was a chance to generate revenue; RDU will receive more than $5 million in lease payments over 10 years.
Generating revenue is also the reason RDU ended its long-term lease on the bike trail land in Lake Crabtree County Park. The county had paid $1 a year to lease the park land. In June, it agreed to a new long-term lease for about 70 acres of the park closest to the lake starting at $214,488 the first year and increasing 3% annually.
Meanwhile, RDU has chosen a developer to explore turning the 136 acres once used for bike trails into a “recreation and wellness destination” adjacent to what’s left of the county park. RDU and the developer, Pacific Elm Properties, have held two public workshops to solicit ideas for the project. A third and final workshop will take place Oct. 21 at Frontier RTP, Building 700, on Park Offices Drive in Research Triangle Park.
This story was originally published October 3, 2025 at 5:30 AM with the headline "NC to lease Umstead State Park land to Wake County for mountain bike trails."
