Christmas Parade Will Start at Woodstock Elementary School

Instead of starting at the annual Parade of Lights behind the Woodstock Aquatic Center, city staff will now move forward with yet another starting and ending point for its annual Christmas procession.

The parade will now begin and end at Woodstock Elementary School, which sits at 230 Rope Mill Road. The Woodstock City Council was informed of the latest route during its meeting on Monday, Sept. 22.

The new route will have parade marchers go:

• South on Rope Mill and onto Main Street;
• Right onto Towne Lake Parkway;
• Left onto Mill Street;
• Right onto Market Street;
• Left onto Fowler Street;
• Left onto Main Street and continue onto Rope Mill Road where the parade will end at the school.

Woodstock was forced to make the change since its typical starting part — the parking lot of the old Walmart building on Highway 92 at Main Street — will be off limits as Sam’s Club will soon start construction to renovate the building for use.

Earlier this month, Pooser initially proposed the parade start in the parking lot behind the aquatic center, which sits adjacent to the Park at City Center.

That route — which would have been a total of 1.3 miles — would have had participants marching west along Arnold Mill Road and Towne Lake Parkway, turning left onto Mill Street, turning right onto Market Street, left onto Dupree Road, left onto Main Street to end at the Park at City Center.

Pooser stated starting at the park would not be an option due to the amount of space needed to stage the number of floats, marchers and vehicles participating in the parade. For example, in 2013, the city had roughly 2,680 linear feet of floats, participants and vehicles all were staged to participate in the parade.

Starting at the elementary school would provide enough space for staging as well as space for participants to put the finishing touches on their floats.

The latest route clocks in just under two miles, Pooser noted. However, the new route will allow more residents to view the parade at various points throughout downtown. He also said the parade keeps Dupree Road open, so motorists can use the street to detour around Main Street.

The only downside Pooser noted was the possibility of those who started the parade could possibly run into those marching at the tail end of the parade along Main Street near Towne Lake Parkway. City staff will work on fine tuning some of the timing in the parade to minimize that possibility.

On Thursday, Pooser said the city will have a map of the route ready next week for the public to review.

(Photo credit: Shutterstock)