On behalf of Great Rivers Greenway and St. Louis County Parks thank you to the 100+ people who came out to attend the Mississippi Greenway in Cliff Cave County Park Open House last month. Your input and guidance is invaluable as we move toward final designs and construction. Attendees were excited for this expanded greenway, and brought insight (both opportunities and concerns) about the project area that only community residents can – again, we thank you.

We are setting follow-up meetings, doing additional research and refining the details of the project. We want to provide an update for those unable to attend, and we will host another meeting with updated designs prior to beginning construction this fall.

This project takes place entirely within Cliff Cave County Park, building upon the 5+ miles of greenways already there, providing a safe, accessible (ADA) connection between the upper and lower parts of the park.

Area residents will have no need to get and their car and drive to the trail with two new pedestrian trailheads, one at Cliff Cave Road / New England Town Road and one at Telegraph Road / Erb Road, each connecting with the extensive sidewalk system in the neighborhoods. We’re updating these trailheads and signage to be more clear, and there will be a gate at the Telegraph entrance. A new 44+ car trailhead parking lot at Cliff Cave /New England Town is provided to complement the existing 90 car lot at the bottomland park location.  The project provides 2 additional miles of paved greenway, new restroom facilities, and including an improved scenic overlook.

As with any St. Louis County Park, there will be signs, amenities, and park rangers on patrol along the new greenway, where people can take a walk, go for a run or ride a bike. The project is carefully protecting the natural areas, too.

We will work with the residents of the Park Place Subdivision and the Monastery of St. Clare to discuss how natural berms and new trees and bushes will create screenings for their properties. On other greenways like Grant’s Trail, our neighbors have reported an increase in property values for the new amenity’s proximity, and no increase in criminal activity.

We’ve also been working closely with the Gateway Off-Road Cyclists group; they have advised us on how and when the greenway can safely intersect with their existing mountain biking trails in the park.

As with all projects, we will closely monitor this in the first year, to understand how people are using the greenway. We are grateful for your feedback and we look forward to the next meeting to share updated designs.

Click here to see the presentation boards from our January 13, 2016 Open House