Woods: $147 million federal grant a game-changer for Groundwork Jacksonville, Emerald Trail

I remember going to a community meeting about a decade ago, shortly after Groundwork Jacksonville launched in 2014.

I was vaguely aware of how the National Park Service was a partner with Groundwork USA and about 20 local programs around the country. When Jacksonville was selected as a Groundwork site, the ambitious goal was a new Emerald Necklace — a 21st-century version of the urban greenways and waterways that architect Henry Klutho envisioned after the Great Fire of 1901.

I liked the idea. But, to be honest, I didn’t like the odds of it actually happening.

The park service had pledged to chip in $80,000 for the start-up phase of Groundwork Jacksonville, and the city had committed $50,000 a year for three years.

It wasn’t nothing. But it was a very long way from what it would take to achieve the goal — not only rejuvenating long-neglected waterways and greenways, but invigorating the neighborhoods connected to them.

That would easily require tens of millions or more to complete a project that became known as the Emerald Trail — a 30-mile trail connecting 14 neighborhoods to downtown, McCoys Creek, Hogans Creek and the St. Johns River.

Spin ahead nearly 10 years: the U.S. Department of Transportation recently awarded a $147 million grant to the city of Jacksonville, Jacksonville Transportation Authority and Groundwork Jacksonville to design and construct the five remaining segments of the Emerald Trail.

It’s the largest one-time federal grant in the city’s history.

Completion target: 2030

Kay Ehas, CEO of Groundwork Jacksonville, says it means that finishing the Emerald Trail won’t involve waiting 30 years for gas tax money to trickle in. It should be completed almost as targeted in the initial master plan, by 2030.

It’s huge local news. And to a degree, it got overlooked last week. It came out amidst the conclusion of the JEA trial. And instead of a press conference with some of the partners — that happened Tuesday — the news first trickled out via U.S. Rep. Aaron Bean’s office, before USDOT had officially announced 132 grant winners.

It quickly led to the inevitable question of who deserves credit. Groundwork Jacksonville? JTA and CEO Nat Ford? Mayor Donna Deegan for her administration’s relationships with the Biden Administration? Bean and fellow U.S. Rep. John Rutherford?

Probably a mix of all of the above, plus some more.

“It really was a team effort," Ehas said. "We always said we wanted it to be a community project. And we got private support, state support, city support, federal support.”

My perspective: I don’t really care who gets credit. I mainly just care that the Emerald Trail is getting done.

(Still, it was something to see the initial headlines about Bean and Rutherford championing the Emerald Trail. I say this partly because Rutherford was among those who voted against the infrastructure bill, and partly because while the two congressmen from Northeast Florida deserve credit for securing the funding, it felt a bit like leading a victory lap for a marathon that others ran.)

A lot has happened in the last decade.

The reality is that Jacksonville doesn’t get this grant if the Emerald Trail is simply another one of our city’s many grand renderings, just something on paper or PowerPoint.

JTA and Groundwork Jacksonville submitted a joint application for the grant last September. And when Deegan, Ford and Ehas traveled to Washington in November, meeting with Rutherford and Bean and other government officials, they weren't just asking for money for some grand idea. They were able to show what already is happening on the ground here.

About 40 percent of the trail is complete, under construction or designed.

“Have you seen McCoys Creek?” Ehas asked this week. “When I go out there and see the meanders, it fills my heart with joy. It is so pretty.”

Walking the Emerald Trail

When I walked across Jacksonville in 2018, going from Baldwin to the beaches, Ehas and Larry Roberts joined me for one segment of the walk — the part that included a section of the Emerald Trail.

Ehas had become CEO of Groundwork Jacksonville in 2017. Roberts was president of JTC Running at the time.

We started near the Rail Yard District, at a small bridge over McCoys Creek on Stockton Street and walked toward where the Times-Union building was on Riverside Avenue, over the bridge on Park Street, past the convention center, through LaVilla, New Town and Durkeeville, behind UF Health, and along Hogans Creek in Springfield.

We walked some of the existing S-Line, the s-shaped rails-to-trails path that would become part of the Emerald Trail. But much of what Ehas and Roberts showed me involved imagining what was there in the past — for instance, how we had filled in McCoys Creek floodplain, predictably creating flooding issues — and what could be there in the future.

I liked the vision. But, again, I still wasn’t sure about the odds of it becoming reality.

That year JTC Running donated $50,000 and, along with grants from Local Initiatives Support Corporation and the Community Foundation for Northeast Florda, helped fund the Emerald Trail master plan.

“Talk about seed money,” Ehas said.

For as long as I can remember, we’ve been talking about reviving the Emerald Necklace. There are stories in the Times-Union archives from the 1990s about it. Ron Littlepage wrote columns about it long before I ever did. These seeds didn't grow overnight.

When Alvin Brown was mayor, the ball started rolling with the launch of Groundwork Jacksonville. And when Lenny Curry was mayor, the ball kept rolling with support for the Emerald Trail, including the master plan and gas tax, approved by City Council.

But this latest news is what supporters often use to describe the trail itself — a game-changer.

There's still a lot of work to be done. Not just the remaining construction and design, or cleaning up the long-neglected creeks. The ongoing community involvement. The efforts to ensure success doesn't displace longtime residents. And, what is too often an issue in Jacksonville, making sure the Emerald Trail is maintained once completed.

But these are good problems to have. Nearly a decade after the initial Groundwork Jacksonville community meetings, I not only like the idea of the Emerald Trail. I like the odds of it actually happening.

mwoods@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4212

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: $147 million federal grant for Jacksonville's Emerald Trail