Fayetteville Trails Head South, Southwest

More Than 10 Miles On Tap Over The Next Three Years

STAFF PHOTO ANDY SHUPE Workers with Arco Excavation and Paving in Bentonville assemble forms Friday before pouring concrete pathways and barriers in Town Branch beneath South School Avenue in Fayetteville. The work is a part of an extension of the city’s trail system linking to Mount Kessler and a planned regional park.
STAFF PHOTO ANDY SHUPE Workers with Arco Excavation and Paving in Bentonville assemble forms Friday before pouring concrete pathways and barriers in Town Branch beneath South School Avenue in Fayetteville. The work is a part of an extension of the city’s trail system linking to Mount Kessler and a planned regional park.

FAYETTEVILLE -- The city's trail-building team is turning its attention to Mount Kessler and a planned regional park during the next three years.

Staff engineers hope to give residents at least one way to walk or ride their bikes to 630 acres of city land in southwest Fayetteville by the time the first phase of the regional park opens in 2016.

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Trail Plans

For a map of south Fayetteville trails planned during the next three years, go to nwaonline.com/docum….

"The extension of the Frisco Trail (under Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard) has really opened up a lot of opportunities in the south part of town," Matt Mihalevich, trails coordinator, said last week. "We're really branching out from that and extending the trail system to a lot of destinations down there."

The trails will run by Baum Stadium, the Arkansas Research and Technology Park, future University of Arkansas intramural fields and several new apartment complexes on the south side of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

More than 10 miles of trail are planned in south and southwest Fayetteville by the end of 2017.

"There is nowhere it's needed more than down on our southside," Sarah Marsh, Ward 1 alderwoman, said at a City Council meeting Tuesday. "Thank you for extending this into neighborhoods and giving more people the ability to walk, ride bikes and have a more active lifestyle. I can't wait to ride my bike to the regional park."

Construction on the 2.8-mile Town Branch Trail, which will run south of 15th Street from Walker Park to just east of Interstate 49, is being paid for in part using an $815,000 Walton Family Foundation grant. The trail is to be built in three phases this year and next. It will tie into a 0.4-mile stub built in 2007 by Crowne Apartments developers, now called The Spectrum.

The foundation also gave the city $150,000 to help design the Cato Springs Trail, which will extend south from the Town Branch Trail at Greathouse Park to the Mount Kessler trailhead dedicated last week. The trail will cross the Fulbright Expressway via a pedestrian bridge before going under I-49 at the Cato Springs Road interchange, according to Mihalevich.

"It involves some pretty involved permitting ... so we wanted to bring in some help from a consultant," Mihalevich said. The City Council on Aug. 5 will likely award a $328,000 design contract to Garver engineers, the same company that designed the Frisco Trail extension.

Kevin Thornton, spokesman for foundation, said helping the city pay to extend trails to Mount Kessler and the regional park fits with one of the foundation's main goals: linking to natural amenities in Northwest Arkansas.

"Providing access to areas like Mount Kessler furthers our mission to make Northwest Arkansas a great place to work and play," Thornton said. "As Northwest Arkansas continues to grow, it is vital to preserve green space and the natural beauty that we enjoy in the region."

The foundation has given about $16 million to trail projects along the 36-mile Razorback Regional Greenway in the past several years.

Fayetteville engineers also want to build two connections to Mount Kessler and the regional park on the west side of I-49.

A 12-foot-wide pedestrian path is planned along Rupple Road in 2016 when Rupple is extended 1.5 miles from Persimmon Street to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. The path will stop at King Boulevard, Mihalevich said. Eventually it will extend on the south side of the street up to Mount Kessler.

City engineers also plan to link to the regional park via the Shiloh Trail, which will follow Shiloh Drive south past the Magnuson Grand Hotel, formerly called the Clarion Inn. A "cycle track" set off from lanes of traffic with a curb will tie into the Cato Springs Trail on the west side of I-49 and will cut through 253 acres of the former SouthPass development, owned by Chambers Bank, northeast of the regional park.

Also nearing completion this year is a 1.8-mile stretch of the Tsa La Gi Trail on the south side of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, east of I-49. The trail will connect several student housing developments with the Frisco Trail and, ultimately, the University of Arkansas campus. The trail's name means "Cherokee" in the tribe's native tongue.

Specialized Real Estate Group, the Fayetteville company with plans to build an 1,100-bedroom cottage-style complex called Beechwood Village across the street from the University House apartments, donated a 920-foot trail easement to the city.

"We believe that a city's trail system is about the best amenity that a multihousing community can have," Specialized Group's president, Seth Mims, said Thursday.

Extending the Tsa La Gi trail west of I-49 will depend on the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department's redesign for the interchange at Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

Highway department plans presented in March showed on-street bike lanes under the I-49 bridge. City officials requested a separated pedestrian path on the south side of the street. Randy Ort, Highway Department spokesman, said earlier this month consultants with Burns & McDonnell of Kansas City, Mo., are working to finalize designs.

All of the trail construction in south and southwest Fayetteville means at least one project, the Niokaska Creek Trail on the northeast side of town, will have to be put off for several years. Mihalevich said another project, the Clabber Creek Trail in northwest Fayetteville, has been held up because of environmental permitting in a wetland area.

He said the city will have more than 36 miles of trail once all of the construction during the next three years is completed. That figure doesn't include narrow walking and running trails like the paths in Gulley and Wilson parks.

NW News on 07/19/2014

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