If you've been bracing for cones on Watermill Parkway this month, you can stop checking your mirrors on that stretch. The bridge that will eventually carry your street over the new Powhite Parkway hasn't been touched. The equipment that showed up this month is a mile north, at the corner of Woolridge and Old Hundred roads, and it isn't building your overpass. It's building the road that has to exist before your overpass can.
That distinction matters if you live in Watermill, because the Powhite Parkway Extension has been talked about in Chesterfield for so long that it earned a nickname among county officials before a single shovel went into the ground: Bigfoot. After decades on the county's thoroughfare plan, the project's first construction contract was advertised in September 2026, and Chesterfield's transportation director, Chessa Walker, confirmed to the Board of Supervisors in August that work would start by the end of this year or early 2027. What's actually underway right now, though, is narrower and more specific than most residents assume.
What's Moving This Fall, and What Isn't
The confusion is understandable. "Powhite Parkway Extension near Watermill" sounds like one project. It's actually five separate construction segments, built in a deliberate sequence, and the first one has nothing to do with the bridge over your street.
Here's how the county and CDOT engineer Bill Arel have described the order of operations:
- First: Woolridge Road gets widened from two lanes to four between Old Hundred Road and Genito Road, and the Woolridge/Old Hundred intersection becomes what county officials call a hybrid roundabout, with two lanes each in the north and south directions and one lane each east and west.
- Second: About a month behind that roadwork contract, a separate contract begins building bridges, moving from east to west toward Woolridge Road. This is where the twin bridges over Tomahawk Creek come in.
- Third, and last: The Watermill Parkway overpass itself, which carries your street over the new parkway, gets built as part of that bridge work. As of the middle of this month, it hadn't started.
Arel laid out the sequencing plainly at an August Board of Supervisors meeting, saying the road-widening contract would be advertised first and the bridge contract would follow about a month later, building "from the east to the west." That order isn't arbitrary. You widen the road that will carry detour and construction traffic before you start tearing into the corridor the bridge will eventually replace.
The practical version, as VPM News reported in mid-September, is this: the piece of Phase 1 currently underway sits at Woolridge and Old Hundred, and the Watermill Parkway overpass, along with the Tomahawk Creek bridges, is not expected to be finished until 2029. If you drive Watermill Parkway to reach Woolridge Road, this fall's disruption is upstream of your neighborhood entrance, not at it.
The Timeline, Side by Side
It helps to see the pieces next to each other, because "construction near Watermill" collapses several different timelines into one worry.
| Segment | Status as of mid-September 2026 | Expected completion |
|---|---|---|
| Woolridge Road widening + hybrid roundabout at Old Hundred | Underway; contract advertised September 2026 | Part of the broader 2029 target for Phase 1 |
| Bridge-building contract (Tomahawk Creek, moving east to west) | Expected to begin about a month behind the roadwork contract | 2029 |
| Watermill Parkway overpass | Not started as of VPM's September 16 report | Slated for 2029 |
| Existing Powhite Parkway toll at Courthouse Road | Currently in place | Removed in January 2027 |
That last row is the one piece of near-term good news that has nothing to do with dirt moving near your street. The 75-cent toll on the existing Powhite Parkway at Courthouse Road is scheduled to come off in January 2027. County officials, including Matoaca District Supervisor Kevin Carroll, have said they're funding the extension without leaning on toll debt, which is part of why that toll is going away rather than sticking around to help pay for the new construction.
Why the Sequence Is Worth Knowing
None of this changes what eventually gets built. The Watermill Parkway overpass is still coming, and when it does, it will connect to the Powhite at Woolridge Road segment on one side and the Powhite at Brandermill Parkway segment on the other, according to Chesterfield's project documentation. But knowing that the current work is happening a mile away, on a different contract, with a different timeline, is the kind of detail that separates a resident who's tracking this correctly from one who's bracing for the wrong thing.
It also explains why Woolridge Road, not Watermill Parkway, is where you'll notice alternating lane closures during off-peak hours this fall. The county has said weekend closures on Woolridge, Genito, and Watermill Parkway are possible but limited to 48 hours at a time, with notice posted 30 days in advance. If a closure does hit Watermill Parkway itself before the overpass work formally starts, it's more likely tied to utility relocation or prep work than the bridge construction that's still a contract away.
There's a quieter piece of context here too. The project's second phase, which will eventually extend the parkway from Woolridge Road to Hull Street Road, runs directly past the NewMarket Village development. County officials have said they're anticipating feedback from that neighborhood once that phase moves forward, but as of VPM's reporting, residents there weren't ready to weigh in yet either. Watermill isn't the only neighborhood watching this project unfold in stages. It's just the one where the first bridge is named after your street.
What This Actually Means for Your Fall
If you live in Watermill, here's the practical read. The construction you'll notice most immediately this fall is at Woolridge and Old Hundred, not at your neighborhood's connection to the parkway. The bridge over your street is real, it's funded, and it's coming, but the earliest reasonable expectation for seeing steel and concrete rise near Watermill Parkway is sometime after the current road contract wraps and the bridge contract that follows it gets further along, likely well into 2027 or later, with the full segment targeted for 2029.
In the meantime, the corridor gets a small win in January 2027 when the toll on the existing Powhite Parkway disappears. That's not related to the extension construction directly, but it lands in the same window, and it's the kind of change that shows up in your actual commute before the overpass does.
If you want to track the project as it moves past this first contract, Chesterfield County keeps an updated project page for the Powhite Parkway Extension with segment maps and construction schedules, and VPM News has been following the story closely as contracts get advertised and construction milestones hit. Both are better sources for real-time updates than secondhand chatter about when "the Watermill bridge" is going up, because as of this month, that bridge is still one contract away from breaking ground.
Whether you're watching this project because you live here or because you're weighing a move into Chesterfield's western corridor, staying current on what's actually under construction, and what's still a year or two out, is part of understanding the neighborhood you're in. If you have questions about how projects like this factor into buying or selling near Watermill, Rick Cox Realty Group is glad to talk through it. Contact Us.
