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Wawasee Syracuse Trails seeks county support for 2.2-mile Wawasee South trail; board declines to approve funding now
Summary
Wawasee Syracuse Trails asked the Kosciusko County CVB for support for the Wawasee South trail, a 2.2-mile connector along State Road 13 to improve safety and school-to-school connectivity. The commission did not move to approve funding at this meeting.
Tracy Ford, executive director of Wawasee Syracuse Trails, asked the Kosciusko County Convention & Visitors Bureau to consider funding preliminary engineering and early construction costs for the Wawasee South project, a proposed 2.2-mile trail along State Road 13 that would connect Grandview Road to Wawasee Middle School.
Ford said the trail would improve safety along a stretch of SR 13 that is currently “not a biker or walker friendly” and would provide school-to-school connectivity so students could walk, bike or roll between the middle school and the high school for the first time. “We are really striving to create trails that expand to neighboring communities as well as, an overall county connectivity as well,” Ford said during her presentation.
Ford outlined fundraising to date: support from K21 (noted as $250,000), the Kenneth and Leila Hartless Foundation, a $10,000 gift from KCCF, and $40,000 in individual donations raised last year. She said the full project cost was large — the group described it in discussion as potentially a multimillion-dollar undertaking — and that current requests were aimed at engineering and early construction phases.
Commissioners questioned what level of county support was feasible given KCCRVC’s annual grant budget and whether state funding might be available because the trail parallels State Road 13. Ford said trail designers were also developing an alternative alignment off SR 13 but that routing along SR 13 was “the path of least resistance” and would be less costly. She added the group planned to pursue Next Level Trails and other grant opportunities and was beginning a more aggressive fundraising campaign.
Commission action and next steps
No motion to fund the Wawasee South project was made at the meeting. The commission’s staff noted the bureau’s annual grant budget and recommended the group reapply when it had documented expenses to meet reimbursement requirements or after additional fundraising milestones are reached.
Ending: Ford thanked the board for its time and said the trails group will continue fundraising and pursue state-level trail programs and other grant sources. The board encouraged the applicant to reapply once the project has a clearer, fundable phase for reimbursement.
