CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – Albemarle County’s Old Mills Trail has been selected by the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation to receive a Recreational Trails Program Grant using funds from the Federal Highway Administration. The total funds for the grant are $210,698.22.

With the grant, Albemarle County will officially undertake the first phase of its ongoing project to extend the trail from its Pantops Mountain location, along the Rivanna River, to reach the Monticello-owned property at Lego Farm.   

“It’s an amazing property with frontage all along the river, the river bends, the scenery becomes completely natural, the wildlife is all over in the air and water,” Albemarle County Chief of Parks Planning Tim Padalino told Cville Right Now “it’s like being transported to an oasis in the middle of the community.” 

The easement to build trails on Lego Farm was granted to the County by Monticello back in 2007, and for the first time ever, the public will have access to it.  If the entirety of the planned expansion following phase one comes to fruition, the trail will be built onto already granted easements on South Lego Farm, all the way to the place of Thomas Jefferson’s birth, Shadwell Farm. Shadwell Farm features historic ruins going to the time at which Jefferson’s father Peter owned the land. 

“It’s an interesting opportunity to create not only an outdoor recreation amenity but in a sense, an outdoor museum, where you can learn about the sense of place and history that’s relevant in our community,” Padalino said. 

Albemarle County applied during the annual spring window.  The application was reviewed and scored by an all-volunteer advisory committee of those who use the trails, lending their time and vocational expertise to provide as accurate a score as possible.  After the advisory committee selected their projects, DCR whittled those selections to the trails that will receive funding for the year.  Of the 24 projects reviewed, the Lego Farm extension was one of seven to get the go-ahead.  One of the reasons The County earned the grant money, was the team effort it took to submit a complete and detailed application.  

Recreational Grants Coordinator for Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation Kellie Seaton was deeply impressed by the community engagement and passion she saw to get the Old Mills Trail extended.  

“It’s a very exciting project,” Seaton told Cville Right Now “the degree of the public involvement in establishing the need for this project, the collaboration between different entities, what the benefits would be to the users, both present and future, and then the project’s readiness to proceed, along with the plans to implement, and the likelihood of its success, this application definitely stood out for all those reasons.” 

Padalino , when outlining who made contributions to getting the project funded, highlighted not only the work of his fellow civil servants in the Parks and Recreation Department, The Office of Grants and Agreements, and the financing budget staff, but also detailed the pledges and support they received from several prominent community organizations that have great incentive to beautify and utilize the trail.  The Rivanna Trails Foundation, the Charlottesville Area Mountain Bike Club, and the C’Ville Area Trail Runners, also pledged in kind volunteer labor, monetary donations, and submitted letters of support for the project. 

The Charlottesville-Albemarle Convention and Visitors Bureau, Rivanna Conservation Alliance, and Monticello are all working to move the project forward. 

“Theres just so many people who have stepped up to say, ‘We will help you. Thank you for getting this started. Good luck, Let’s go,'” Padalino said of the support. 

The trail stands at 2 ¾ miles in length.  As outlined in Albemarle County’s comprehensive plan, County officials are looking to extend the trail all the way to the site of Milton Landing throughout the various phases of the construction process, adding four additional miles of trail in all. From there, constructing a bicycle/pedestrian bridge will connect Milton Landing to the site of two miles of Albemarle Parks and Recreation-maintained at Glenmoor.  Adding this, alongside one mile of trails along the Rivanna Riverfront from Darden Towe Park, will create a ten-mile-long trail along the river that, Padalino said, will be a tourism draw unto itself.  

“It pairs really nicely with some of the tourism activities and interests that we already have, such as heritage, food and beverage, special events and athletics,” Padalino explained, “if we can get a riverfront trail at that length, we’re really starting to match the quality and interest of some of the other tourism draws in our region.” 

Those ten miles, Padalino further detailed, are conceived as a section in the County’s Comprehensive Plan, known as AC44, to be the crown jewel of a massive, 17-mile-long trail along the Rivanna known as the Rivanna River Greenway Blueway, combining both walking trails and river access points for water exploration. According to the plan, it would start at Brook Hill and end at the County’s property at Buck Island. 

With the size of this project, and many federal programs with their funding in flux, Padalino and his team are working to find alternative monetary sources should RTP grants become unavailable in the next cycle.  

“Our funding next year is not guaranteed,” Seaton told Cville Right Now , “usually there’s a continuing resolution that would allow the program to be fully or partially funded next year, but as of now we do not have the funding in hand.” 

RTP grants are tied to the Five-Year Surface Transportation Bill, an infrastructure program that is currently in its fifth year of operation.  It would need to be reauthorized for DCR to continue to award the grants. 

Padalino assured that a Long-Range Project Management Plan is in the works.  They have a partner locally in the Albemarle County Parks Foundation, which has pledged to raise $75,000 to aid trail construction in the short term in its capacity as a 501c3.  The Land and Water Conservation Fund and the Outdoor Recreation Legacy Program at the Federal Level, as well as the Virginia Land Conservation Fund are options being entertained, but all three have logistical pitfalls. 

An information session will be held Sept. 30 for the project, at the Altoview Apartments clubhouse at 4 p.m.  The presentation will feature a group walk to the project site so that interested citizens can view the build for themselves.