Community News

City seeks $25M grant to raise greenway 'Above the Mud', connect to Ecusta

Oklawaha Greenway is often covered with water, mud or silt where it runs alongside Mud Creek near the trailhead at Jackson Park.

By Lightning Reports, Published: January 6, 2025

As the Ecusta Trail moves toward a ribbon-cutting, the  city of Hendersonville is pitching an ambitious plan to connect the Ecusta’s South Main trailhead and the Oklawaha Greenway in Jackson Park.

To get it done, the city is applying for a $25 million federal grant, marking the second time a local government along the Ecusta Trail is going to the same well. The city of Brevard won a $24.5 million grant in 2023 from the U.S. Transportation Department’s bucket of money called Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity, or RAISE.

While $25 million may sound like a big number to fill a small gap, the project’s scope is much larger, City Manager John Connet explained.

The city envisions “what we’re calling a festival street” along South Main, plus improvements to Seventh Avenue, which the Oklawaha crosses, and the design and construction work to raise the trail above Mud Creek. In grant-speak contained in a resolution on the City Council’s docket Wednesday night, “the Above the Mud project will provide multimodal infrastructure that will spur small-town economic development, jobs and tourism while rebuilding a trail segment damaged by recurring flooding and Hurricane Helene.”

The new route on higher ground “would raise that out of the water and out of the mud to make it easier to maintain,” Connet said. “It would go across property that we own.”

The seven-paragraph resolution in support of the RAISE grant points out that the Hendersonville City Council endorsed the Ecusta Trail way back on April 5, 2012, becoming the first elected body to do so. The city also funded a feasibility study that stimulated greater support for the Ecusta Trail.

If funded, the Above the Mud project would “extend the 19-mile regional Ecusta Trail that is expected to generate significant rural economic impact, bringing residents and tourists safely into downtown Hendersonville and reconnect the underserved neighborhoods, improving safety and access,” the city resolution says. The connection to Jackson Park would lengthen the Ecusta by 3.1 miles along the Oklawaha and ultimately link to the Clear Creek Greenway, which is under development. If it adopts the resolution, the council commits to a $1.6 million local match.