Spanish Moss trail gets $2 million toward three additions
While supporters of the Spanish Moss Trail announced about $2 million in gifts that could help complete the path by next year, several factors are still holding up the project.
The three gifts from the James M. Cox Foundation -- coordinated by the Atlanta-based PATH Foundation -- are contingent on local interests raising another $1 million for the trail, which will then extend 11 miles to connect Port Royal to Grays Hill, PATH co-founder Ed McBrayer announced at last week's Beaufort County Council meeting.
McBrayer singled out Port Royal, saying he'd challenged the town to contribute $250,000 to help build the trail from Ribaut Road to the Port of Port Royal.
The foundation has committed $350,000 to that section, which has already been designed.
Port Royal town manager Van Willis said the town didn't budget matching funds for the trail this fiscal year. He estimated the town had given $20,000-$25,000 in the past.
The money, though, is not the only delay to completing the southern end of the trail.
The PATH Foundation needs permission to build on land belonging to the S.C. Ports Authority.
On Tuesday, Ports Authority spokeswoman Erin Dhand said it would be up to the future developer of the property to grant a right-of-way along the trail. The property is under contract with Palmetto Alliance Property Group.
McBrayer also announced a $750,000 gift to build a 3-mile segment of the trail from Roseida to Poppy Hill roads. That money is also contingent on a $750,000 match from local interests, such as Beaufort County, the city of Beaufort, Beaufort Memorial Hospital and local philanthropists.
Designs for that segment are underway, McBrayer said.
The rest of the money -- $950,000 -- will be used to design and build the trail from Poppy Hill Road to Clarendon Road, including the addition of a trail head there.
The Cox family, which owns the Clarendon Farms property along U.S. 21, has donated the right-of-way for the trail, according to McBrayer.
That portion, previously inaccessible to the public, will have a much different feel from the rest of the trail, he added.
"It's gorgeous," McBrayer said Thursday. "It goes through woodland and beside a lake and crosses a stream. It's really pretty."
County council members applauded after his presentation last week, and said they were overwhelmed by the foundation's generosity.
McBrayer noted the trail's progress is miles ahead of its goals.
"Ten years ahead of the people who thought it could be done. A lifetime ahead of all the people who said it would never get done," added Joe DeVito, president of Friends of the Spanish Moss Trail. "And there were a lot of them."
The announcement of the new gifts coincided with the groundbreaking of another phase of the trail already funded, a segment from Depot Road to Broad River Boulevard. That work is expected to be completed by late fall.
The city of Beaufort wants to change its unified development code to allow certain uses like trail-related businesses and restaurants with no drive-thrus along the trail's Depot area, which is currently a limited industrial district.
Reporter Stephen Fastenau contributed to this story. Follow reporter Rebecca Lurye on Twitter at twitter.com/IPBG_Rebecca.
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This story was originally published August 17, 2015 at 11:51 AM with the headline "Spanish Moss trail gets $2 million toward three additions."