Turn out of Devonshire Drive onto Karnes Road, drive west for about two minutes, and you're at the northern trailhead of the Urban Trail on Ferndale Avenue. Turn the other way and you're on North Belt Highway in five, with a demolition site, a new coffee shop, and a Chipotle all going up on the same 1.8-acre lot. Carriage Oaks sits at the hinge between two St. Joseph experiences that most residents treat as separate errands. Fall is when it pays to treat them as one loop.
This post is a practical map of that loop, built for people who already live here and want a Saturday plan that doesn't involve driving to Kansas City.
The Trail Almost Nobody in Carriage Oaks Uses on Purpose
The Urban Trail's northern end is closer to Carriage Oaks than it is to almost any other subdivision in St. Joseph. From Karnes Road, you take the exit for Northwest Parkway and turn left onto Ferndale Avenue. A few parking spots sit at the trailhead, plus on-street parking if those are full.
That northern segment connects to Corby Grove and runs the length of the Northeast and Northwest Parkways. AllTrails clocks the full Northeast/Northwest Parkway route at 5.6 miles with 387 feet of elevation gain, which makes it the longest and steepest paved loop in the city trail system. Riders and walkers who've done it in October tend to describe the same thing: full autumn color, well-maintained concrete, and hills that will make you rethink your usual pace.
A few things worth knowing before you go:
- Terrain is not flat. The trail parallels the parkways and cuts under I-229. Some hills are steep enough that walking a bike up is normal.
- Signage is inconsistent. Reviewers routinely mention wanting to reach Krug Park and losing the connection somewhere along the way.
- The Rec Center is a viable water stop if you come in from the Pickett Road side heading south.
For a shorter outing, the roundabout with red brick pavers is the natural turnaround. You can bear right there for a quicker return leg, or stay left for the longer route toward Hyde Park at Southwest Parkway.
If You Want the Fall Color Without the Climb
Krug Park Trail on the west side of town is shorter, flatter, and holds the highest review count of any trail in the AllTrails St. Joseph list. If you're bringing older parents or small kids and the Northwest Parkway hills feel like too much, this is the substitution. Fall foliage there tends to peak the same weeks as the parkway loop.
What Actually Changed on North Belt This Year
Anyone who's driven North Belt this spring saw the Golden Corral at 715 N. Belt Highway come down. Madget Demolition took the building apart on April 6, 2026. Steve Craig of Craig Realty Group, whose East Hills Properties owns the parcel, confirmed to News-Press NOW that a new Chipotle and a drive-thru coffee shop are planned for the 1.8-acre site. The coffee brand wasn't disclosed at demolition.
This matters for Carriage Oaks households in a small, specific way. The nearest sit-down and quick-serve dining cluster is already the Belt corridor: Il Lazzarone, EMI Ristorante, Boudreaux's, and the row of chains from 54th Street Grill & Bar to Cheddar's to Chili's. A drive-thru coffee option north of Frederick Avenue closes a gap that currently sends most morning coffee runs either to a downtown roaster or to a chain much further south.
The other Belt corridor detail worth logging: Kris and Kates Ice Cream at 2330 N. 36th St. is the pink-and-white cone visible from the highway. It has been running for more than 20 years, and the last warm fall weekends before it closes for the season are usually the ones locals remember to hit.
A Fall Route That Uses All of the Above
Here is a walkable, driveable, no-highway Saturday that connects the three things Carriage Oaks residents most often do separately.
| Stop | Approx. Time | Why it works in October |
|---|---|---|
| Ferndale Ave. trailhead | 45–90 min walk or ride | Peak foliage, quiet before mid-morning |
| Kris and Kates on 36th | 15 min | Season winds down as temperatures drop |
| North Belt lunch (Il Lazzarone, EMI, or Murphy's Smokin Meats) | 60 min | Weekend lunch service is less crowded than dinner |
| Hyde Park loop or the Rec Center | 30–60 min | 94 acres, hard-surface walking trail, splash park closed but paths open |
Hyde Park earns its place at the end for a reason unique to this time of year. Starting the Friday after Thanksgiving and running through January 1, the park transforms into what the Convention & Visitors Bureau calls the "South Pole." That's the window where a fall routine turns into a holiday routine without changing your driving pattern.
Downtown Is Suddenly Worth the Drive Again
The most-repeated complaint from St. Joseph diners for years has been that a nicer dinner meant driving to Kansas City. That's changing at 513 Francis Street.
Jeff and Adrienne Waggoner, who own The Den, are preparing to open revl & co in a downtown building originally constructed in 1891 as a bank. Former tenants in that space have included the Angry Swede and the Provident Brunch House. Jeff Waggoner told News-Press NOW the goal is elevated but approachable, aimed at the range of diners who currently drive south for a real date-night meal.
For a Carriage Oaks resident, the practical read is this: downtown is now a reasonable Friday-night destination without a highway trip. Pair a reservation at revl & co with a walk along Felix Street where the Downtown Farmers Market runs Saturday mornings into October, and you have a fall evening plan that would have required Overland Park in 2019.
If you missed the seventh annual St. Joseph Restaurant Week last February, Natalie Hawn at the Chamber of Commerce has been coordinating it since 2020, with more than two dozen restaurants offering fixed menus at $10, $15, and $30. It runs at the slowest week of the year for local operators, which is when reservations are easiest to get. Mark it on the calendar for late February 2027.
The HOA Calendar Nobody Reads Until They Need It
Carriage Oaks Homeowners Association organizes three community events that anchor the neighborhood social year: an Easter Egg Hunt, a community garage sale, and a Fourth of July Parade. The annual assessment covers common-area maintenance and those events. A homeowner selling here should mention the parade in the listing description. A homeowner buying here should not skip the garage sale, which is where most established residents meet their neighbors properly for the first time.
The point of these three events isn't the events. It's that they set the rhythm of when Carriage Oaks becomes a place where neighbors talk on the sidewalk instead of waving from the driveway.
Fall doesn't have its own HOA event on that calendar, which is part of why the Ferndale trailhead and the Belt Highway coffee run end up doing the work of a season here.
Two Small Notes for Newer Residents
If you moved into Carriage Oaks in the last year and haven't done this yet:
- Drive Karnes Road east all the way to St. Joseph Avenue at least once in mid-October. The tree canopy on that stretch is doing something that a lot of newer subdivisions in the region can't replicate because the trees haven't matured yet.
- Note which lot at the Ferndale trailhead fills up first. In peak color weeks, the spots go by 9:00 a.m. on Saturdays. The on-street options on Ferndale itself hold longer.
Neither of these will show up on a portal listing or a "best of St. Joe" travel article. They show up when you actually live here.
If you're thinking about how your home fits into what's happening around Carriage Oaks this fall, whether that's a sale timed to the holidays or a purchase before the next Belt Highway build cycle wraps up, the team at Coder Haggard Lehr Real Estate Group knows this corner of St. Joseph street by street. Get Your Instant Home Valuation to see where your property stands right now.
