Cherie Down Park, Cape Canaveral

Cherie Down Park is a Brevard County beach park at 8330 Ridgewood Avenue, Cape Canaveral, FL 32920, with contacts listed under the county's Central Area parks office (Brevard County Cherie Down Park page).

Questions about the park go to the county at (321) 455-1380 or CentralAreaParks@BrevardFL.gov, and the county also lists a Central Area Operations line, (321) 633-1874. Parking is free.

The City of Cape Canaveral calls Cherie Down Park a Brevard County-owned park in its own news posts (City of Cape Canaveral renourishment news post). The city's beach access list includes the Ridgewood Avenue Beach Crossover just north of the park, and the city's rules on dogs, fires and alcohol cover beaches within the City of Cape Canaveral. The city's other parks are covered in the Cape Canaveral parks guide, and Manatee Sanctuary Park has its own Digital Towns guide.

Cherie Down Park covers 6.99 acres and has restrooms, outdoor showers, a drinking fountain, a family picnic shelter with grills and a 320 ft. boardwalk along the dunes (Brevard County Cherie Down Park).

The Cherie Down boardwalk has two crossovers to the sand, one of them ADA accessible, and a sheltered picnic area at each end. The county amenity list counts 1 medium picnic pavilion plus the 2 pavilions along the boardwalk, and tags the park for beach access, fishing, geocaching and a launch view. The county describes the beach as a good place for surfing or surf fishing in the Atlantic Ocean.

All rows of the Cherie Down table come from the county Park Directory entry. That entry does not post opening hours or a pavilion rental price, so both are questions for the county phone line before a group outing.

One of the two Cherie Down Park crossovers is ADA accessible, and the city crossover just north of the park has a Mobi-Mat that rolls across the sand (Cape Canaveral Beaches page).

The City of Cape Canaveral's public beach access list runs from Washington Avenue to the Ridgewood Avenue Beach Crossover, which it places north of Cherie Down Park and marks with a Mobi-Mat. Monroe, Polk and Buchanan avenues have Mobi-Mats as well (Cape Canaveral Local Attractions page). The city's beaches page says its beaches are open year round as public property, with beach access parking at no charge at most street ends, while the Local Attractions page says public beach access and parking is available at the east end of every city street; the two city pages differ.

A beach wheelchair can be brought to the Ridgewood Avenue crossover. The city FAQ says Canaveral Fire Rescue delivers and picks up a beach wheelchair at one of the four Mobi-Mat locations on request, first come, first served (City of Cape Canaveral FAQs). Requests go to (321) 783-4424 between 8:00 a.m. and noon, Monday through Friday, so a weekend beach day near Cherie Down Park needs a weekday call.

No dogs on the sand: City of Cape Canaveral Code Section 14-28 bars animals of any kind from beaches within the city, except service dogs that are actively working (Cape Canaveral Dogs on the Beach page).

Bringing a non-service dog onto a Cape Canaveral beach can mean a citation and a $35.00 fine, and the city asks people to report a dog on the beach to the Brevard County Sheriff's Office non-emergency line at (321) 633-7162. The same page notes that city parks have allowed leashed dogs since a May 15, 2018 City Council vote, and that Rover's Space, an off-leash area inside Xeriscape Park at 106 Taylor Avenue, opened in May 2019. That rule covers city parks; the county page for Cherie Down Park does not address dogs, so the county line is the place to ask about leashed dogs on the boardwalk.

For a dog that needs sand, the City of Cape Canaveral points to parts of Cocoa Beach, listed at 6.1 miles away, and to the off-leash dog park at Lori Wilson Park in Cocoa Beach, 4.1 miles away.

On Cape Canaveral beaches, open fires are banned but cooking fires are allowed inside a self-contained UL-listed container, and glass is prohibited (City of Cape Canaveral FAQs).

The Cape Canaveral FAQ adds that hot coals, briquettes and embers may not be dumped in trash cans or on the sand, a cooking fire must be fully out before anyone leaves it, and the beach must be left as it was found. Open containers of alcohol are prohibited on any public dune crossover, and alcohol containers larger than one gallon (128 ounces) are not allowed on the beach or dune. Dune crossover repairs are handled by the city's Public Works Services Department at (321) 868-1240, while the Florida Department of Environmental Protection regulates any trimming of dune plants.

Sea turtle season brings a Cape Canaveral lighting rule: beach-facing lights must be off, or curtains drawn, from 9:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. every day from May 1 to October 31 (Cape Canaveral sea turtle laws page). Florida's Marine Turtle Protection Act makes it illegal to disturb nests or turtles. Lighting violations in Cape Canaveral are reported to Code Enforcement at (321) 868-1220.

Cherie Down Park is not on the Brevard County Ocean Rescue list of full-time lifeguard towers, which are all in Cocoa Beach and North Indialantic (Brevard County Ocean Rescue Services).

The county's full-time towers operate daily from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM at the Cocoa Beach Pier, Shepard Park, Lori Wilson Park and the Minutemen Causeway in Cocoa Beach and at Paradise/Futch Park in North Indialantic. The county also notes that Port Canaveral provides year-round lifeguard service at Jetty Park. The county page also points beachgoers to the Florida Division of Emergency Management Rip Current Map before heading to the beach. The Cocoa Beach surf conditions and rip currents guide explains how the official forecast and flags work.

The City of Cape Canaveral announced that the south end of Cherie Down Park would again be the staging area for an Army Corps of Engineers sand bypass project (City of Cape Canaveral renourishment news post).

The project's official name is the Canaveral Harbor Sand Bypass Project, and construction vehicles were to use the Washington Avenue beach crossover. The city post said much of its beach had been lost to storm events since the last renourishment cycle, and that sand dunes would not be disturbed. The Corps' Jacksonville District awarded a $40.6 million contract on September 20, 2024 for the sixth round of the bypass project, which moves about 1.5 million cubic yards of sand from the shoreline just north of Port Canaveral. Segment 1 covered about 3.3 miles from just south of Jetty Park in Cape Canaveral to about Shepard Park in Cocoa Beach. Work was scheduled to start no earlier than November 1, 2024 and finish by April 30, 2025, before the next sea turtle nesting season.

Earlier rounds of the Cape Canaveral sand bypass ran in 1995, 1998, 2007, 2010 and 2019 and placed about 4.7 million cubic yards of sand on Brevard County beaches, according to the same post. The post noted that Cherie Down Park had served as a staging site in past cycles as well, and the city said it would share further construction details as they became available.

Last verified: October 21, 2026, by rereading the Brevard County Cherie Down Park and Ocean Rescue pages and the City of Cape Canaveral beach access, attractions, dog, FAQ, turtle lighting and renourishment pages for this park guide.