Palmetto celebrates completion of first leg of new trail

Though the final paver was installed at the end of 2016, officials gathered under overcast skies near the Palmetto fishing pier Thursday morning to officially celebrate the opening of Palmetto’s new multimodal trail.

City staff, elected officials from both the city and Manatee County and Florida Department of Transportation and the Sarasota-Manatee Metropolitan Planning Organization were on hand to celebrate the special moment.

“This is the first leg of a lot more things to come,” said Palmetto Mayor Shirley Groover Bryant. “It’s the first leg of the emphasis we are putting on improving our urban corridor.”

The $4 million opening phase was funded with a $2 million from Palmetto’s Community Redevelopment Agency, about $500,000 from the Southwest Florida Water Management District and $1.5 million between FDOT and MPO. Included in the CRA’s investment is 1,000 feet of new seawall and living shoreline. Work on lighting for the living shoreline is still underway, and officials will test that lighting system next month.

MPO Senior Transportation Planner Mike Maholtz called the moment a proud day.

“I’m so pleased to see the first piece of the U.S. 41 multimodal emphasis corridor come into place,” Maholtz said, noting that the first phase of Palmetto’s trail system is at the northern end of a larger multimodal system that will tie into the southernmost system in North Port. “This is the very first piece of our project.”

The city’s next phases aren’t scheduled to begin until 2021. They will tie the first phase along Riverside Drive into 10th Avenue West, north to 17th Street West and eventually connect the city’s entire parks system and beyond.

Bryant said the goal is to eventually “hook into the rail system that goes all the way to Parrish. We want it to tie into the Sun Trail system. We want a greater impact and keep improving the city of Palmetto for years to come.”

FDOT has pledged funding toward the 2021 construction that will encompass all five remaining phases of the project through Palmetto. Trisha Hartzell, FDOT construction engineer, said the project couldn’t have happened without good partners.

“It was a great project and it’s really turning this corridor around and it’s beautiful,” Hartzell said. “We look forward to the next phase and working with everyone again.”

This story was originally published February 23, 2017 at 1:44 PM with the headline "Palmetto celebrates completion of first leg of new trail."