Long in the making, new extension of popular Gateway State Trail gets the green light

With a vote of approval Tuesday night, the city of Scandia cleared the way for a new segment of the popular Gateway State Trail that will connect with William O’Brien State Park in Marine on St. Croix.

Some supporters, like those connected with the Gateway-Brown’s Creek Trail Association, project a significant payoff for an addition that was about 25 years in the making. The 3.6-mile trail extension is a multiple winner, for access to recreation and for trail town prosperity.

“It is an investment that is going to help the long-term economic development of the trail communities,” said past president Rob McKim, singling out the Brown’s Creek State Trail. “You want to see the impact of a trail? Come to Stillwater on a Saturday.”

Scandia Mayor Steve Kronmiller echoed the upside for the city.

“Scandia wants to leverage its open spaces for tourism and outdoor recreation,” Kronmiller said Wednesday morning, “and this is a significant step forward in making that happen.”

Lisa Philippi, president of the Friends of Scandia Parks and Trails, said cities like Crosby and Lanesboro show what the newest Gateway project could produce, including cycling tourism. Summer users of the Root River State Trail, which runs through Lanesboro, and Harmony-Preston Valley State Trail spent $2.3 million in 2009, according to a report from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.

DNR project manager Kent Skaar said William O’Brien State Park stands to feel the effect, too. The park draws more than 200,000 visitors each year on average.

The new extension’s construction will occur in two phases. The first mile, which will be built next year, will stretch from a trailhead behind Scandia’s old fire station to Oakhill Road (Hwy. 52), where another trailhead and a pedestrian tunnel will be built. A dirt horse trail will run parallel to the new path.

The remaining 2.6 miles, from Oakhill Road to the state park, will be built in a second phase. Completion is expected between 2028 and 2030.

Multiple funding sources will pay for the first mile. Scandia received a $2.7 million state grant from lottery funds allocated by the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources (LCCMR). The DNR ($650,000) and Washington County ($800,000) are also helping fund the project.

The DNR will likely look to the LCCMR again to pay for the trail’s second phase, Skaar said.

The extension won’t connect to the current Gateway State Trail — yet. But the work is a reminder that the Gateway’s expansion isn’t finished. The long-term vision for the Gateway, which currently runs 18 miles from St. Paul to Pine Point Regional Park in rural Washington County, stitches it with nearby regional trails.

“Different pieces are coming together,” said Brett Feldman, the council’s executive director. “We are closing the gaps slowly but surely.”

Some of those gaps are in Chisago County. Feldman’s organization recently bought land north of Scandia for a 2½-mile gap in the Swedish Immigrant Regional Trail between Center City and Shafer. Currently, the trail has a 5-mile segment between Chisago City and Center City and a 6.7-mile path between Center City and Taylors Falls and Interstate State Park.

Construction on the 2½-mile segment is expected to be completed next fall.

Farther out, the Swedish Immigrant trail master plan includes its future connection to the Sunrise Prairie Regional Trail in Forest Lake that currently runs 21 miles north to Harris. The segment from Chisago City to Forest Lake will get built as part of a highway project scheduled for completion in 2028.

“It is all about creating more access to the outdoors for more people,” Feldman said.

“There are compromises everywhere,” said Feldman of the decades of planning, collaboration and setbacks.

The Parks & Trails Council began securing trail easements for Scandia in 2007. Also, the city came up with a plan to break up the extension and diversify the funding after a bonding request failed.

The city resolved remaining questions in recent months, including explaining the need for a pedestrian tunnel under Oakhill Road, which the DNR required for safety reasons.

“The project has taken a long time, and the players have changed,” said Kronmiller, who was on the council for eight years before becoming mayor.