Wednesday, March 13, 2024–6:25 a.m.

-David Crowder, WRGA News-

The City of Rome Public Works Committee has voted to expedite engineering services for a 2023 special purpose, local option sales tax project.

2 million dollars was included in the SPLOST for a connector trail which will run from the riverfront trail in Ridgeferry Park along Burwell Creek, ultimately connecting to the Jackson Hill trail system.

“If you are familiar with Burwell Creek, it’s on the lower parking lot side of the development with Olive Garden, Starbucks, Shane’s, and then the container store for Chick-fil-A,” said Rome City Manager Sammy Rich. That lower parking lot would be adjacent. This trail would run adjacent to the creek. It would actually go under Riverside Parkway.”

The part to be determined by an engineer will be whether sections of boardwalk will be used for the wet areas or will the trail loop around the old duck pond.

“At the end of the day we are trying to get over to the Rome Civic Center, and ultimately behind the civic center to Jackson Hill so we can connect those two trail systems together,” Rich said. “What the committee asked us to do today is to go ahead and move forward with engineering. What we presented at SPLOST was just a concept of how we can get from point A to point B.  Now, we can go ahead and move forward with some actual engineering design and figure out what that is going to look like, AND what it’s going to cost.”

The area around the old duck pond brings up a lot of a lot of nostalgic memories for those who grew up in the Rome area. It wasn’t that many years ago there was a potential rezoning of that area and there was a community movement that revolved around saving “Rome’s Central Park.” Ultimately, that property was preserved for green space.

“Ever since I moved to Rome, there have always been a lot of stories and a lot of nostalgia, and people talking about taking their ducks down to the duck pond,” Rich said. “I think it has a lot of great memories for Rome. If we could open that area back up for pedestrian access, so people can walk through there, I think it’s going to be a great project for the community.”

A number of other trail developments are continuing locally. Work is underway on the continuation of the Mt. Berry Trail and it won’t be long until the trail system gets its first loop. New ECO Greenway signs should be shipped by the end of the month and there are tentative plans for a dedication ceremony in April at the ECO Center in Ridgeferry Park.